Norwich

In wealth and population seventeenth-century Norwich vied with Bristol for position as England’s second city. Contemporaries described it in utopian terms. Thomas Fuller thought it ‘either a city in an orchard, or an orchard in a city, so equally are houses and trees blended in it; so the pleasure of the country and populousness of the city meet here together’. T. Fuller, Hist. of the Worthies of Eng. ed. P.A. Nuttall (1840), ii. 487. In 1671, when he was shown round by the famous local physician, Sir Thomas Browne, John Evelyn found Norwich to be

one of the largest and certainly (after London) one of the noblest [cities] of England, for its venerable cathedral, number of stately churches, cleanness of the streets and buildings of flint, so exquisitely headed and squared, as I was much astonished at. Evelyn Diary, ed. de Beer, iii. 594.

The economic fortunes of Norwich were closely linked with the textile industry and worsted production in particular. Since the late sixteenth century this had been boosted by the arrival of Dutch and Walloon weavers fleeing religious persecution in the Low Countries. By the 1630s those trends had gone into reverse, however: cloth production was in trouble and the persecutions were now centred on Norwich. In just over two years, between late 1635 and early 1638, the bishop, Matthew Wren, clamped down on religious dissent and indiscipline. Edward Hyde* later summed up what had become the standard accusation against Wren that, having ‘passionately furiously proceeded against them’, he had caused many in Norwich to flee abroad, ‘to the lessening the wealthy manufacture there of kerseys and narrow cloths, and, which was worse, transporting that mystery into foreign parts’. Clarendon, Hist. ii. 418. Among many of those who remained there was a legacy of bitterness against Wren and the controversy left a deep factional divide within the corporation. By 1640 those most hostile to the Laudian innovations dominated the common council but had not yet secured control of the court of aldermen. J.T. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich (Oxford, 1979), 90-104. These circumstances would play a part in the outcomes of the 1640 parliamentary elections. The constitution of the city was based on two fifteenth-century charters: the charter of 1404 incorporated the city as a county under the government of the mayor, sheriffs, citizens and commonalty. Recs. of the City of Norwich, ed. W. Hudson and J.C. Tingay (Norwich and London, 1906-10), i. pp. lx-lxxi, 31-6. The electorate comprised the resident freemen, who may in this period have numbered as many as 2,000. Hirst, Representative of the People?, 225.

In the elections for the Short Parliament, held on 9 March 1640, the city returned Thomas Atkin* and John Tolye*. C219/42, pt.1, f. 155. A decade earlier both men had served as Norfolk feoffees for impropriations, the unofficial initiative by which a group of private individuals had attempted to promote the appointment of godly clergymen to benefices within the Norwich diocese. SP16/531, f. 196. Both had also risen to become Norwich aldermen, although Atkin’s relations with the Norwich corporation had become strained in 1637 when their counterparts in London nominated him as one of the sheriffs of London. Atkin took up that appointment after objections made by the Norwich corporation were overruled by the privy council. Norf. RO, Norwich mayor’s court bk. 1634-46, f. 162; PC2/48, pp. 75-6. Atkin then relocated to London permanently, resigned as an alderman in Norwich and was elected as an alderman in London. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, ff, 339. 345; Aldermen of London, i. 148. But by 1640 his former colleagues at Norwich were prepared to forgive him and may well have come to see his London connections as potentially useful to them. Like Atkin, Tolye had meanwhile aligned himself with those members of the corporation who opposed the policies of Bishop Wren. Bodl. Tanner 68, f. 149; Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 342. A petition critical of Wren and signed by 300 of the citizens was presented to the Short Parliament by Atkin on 18 April. CJ ii. 6a; Procs. Short Parl. 158, 235, 279; Aston’s Diary, 12. One of the county MPs, Sir John Holland*, also submitted a petition from the local weavers against the soap monopoly to the Commons’ committee on grievances. Procs. Short Parl. 262-3.

The autumn election was contested by three candidates: Tolye, Richard Harman* and Richard Catelyn*. Harman, a hosier and alderman, had just completed his term as mayor. In contrast, Catelyn, a former Norfolk feoffee for impropriations, was not even a freeman of the city, but neither was he a complete outsider, as he lived at Lakenham, just beyond the city’s boundaries. Harman and Catelyn easily outpolled Tolye, but the Norwich sheriffs, John Osborne and John Dethick, unwilling to offend either side, made a double return, naming Harman on both indentures, accompanied (unusually) by a statement explaining the confusion. C219/43, pt. 2, ff. 61, 62. They claimed that Harman had received 1,089 votes, that Catelyn received 906 and that Tolye had trailed in third place with 275. However they also questioned Catelyn’s eligibility and declared that if the return in favour of Harman and Catelyn was invalid, they returned Harman and Tolye. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 63; CJ ii. 22a.

Some members of the corporation clearly resented the attempts by the freemen to impose on them an MP from outside their own ranks. Their displeasure was expressed on 28 October in a resolution condemning those citizens and freemen who had voted for an ‘outsider’ (Catelyn) for ‘some private ends’ and who were now threatening to do the same in any future elections. What was so objectionable was that ‘the secrets of the city are not fit to be imparted to strangers’, who could also not be ‘so sensible of the grievances and inconveniences in the same fit for redress as he that is a member’. It was then ordered that any freeman who voted for such a candidate in any future election would be fined £5. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 365.

But it was not for the Norwich corporation to decide the outcome of this dispute. At a meeting of the Commons’ committee of privileges on 6 November, John Pym* spoke on Catelyn’s behalf, citing several precedents to show that the candidate who had the ‘most voices should stand elected although he was not a freeman’. The committee accepted that argument, voting unanimously that the fact that Catelyn was not a freeman was irrelevant. Procs. LP, i. 22. It also contemplated action against the sheriffs, ‘yet because there appeared no corruption or practice in the managing of this election they passed that point by’. CJ ii. 22a; Procs. LP, i. 39. (Throughout these proceedings the Commons seems to have assumed that there was just one sheriff, even though in reality Norwich had two, both of whom had made the returns.) The following day the Commons concurred with the committee’s report and declared for Harman and Catelyn. The sheriff was censured for returning more than two names, as this was ‘a great misdemeanour in him’. CJ ii. 22b; Procs. LP, i. 32, 37-9, 46. Catelyn took his seat immediately. Procs. LP, i. 39.

Discontent with Laudian religious policies might again have been a factor in election, albeit not as straightforwardly as in the spring. The election dispute had been mainly between Catelyn and Tolye, both of whom had been feoffees for impropriations, and the senior members of the corporation listed in the rival indentures were not split along clear-cut religious lines. Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 24; Hirst, Representative of the People?, 124; Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 110-11. The pro-Laudians, probably pleased with Harman’s election but indifferent between the less acceptable Catelyn and Tolye, may have opted for the lesser of two evils in upholding the tradition of choosing an ‘insider’. The names on the indenture suggest that those who, in the end, sided with Tolye tended to be the more senior members of the corporation. Hirst, Representative of the People?, 124.

The dispute over this election did not poison relations between Catelyn and the corporation. The following March Catelyn successfully acted as the intermediary in the dispute between the city and the lords lieutenant of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, 21st (and 14th) earl of Arundel and Lord Mowbray (Henry Frederick Howard*). Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 367v. The corporation thanked Catelyn by admitting him as a freeman, which implicitly drew a line under the argument used against his election six months earlier. He took the freeman’s oath on 3 April 1641, on condition that he would not be expected to hold any civic office against his will. Norf. RO, Norwich mayor’s court bk. 1634-46, f. 162. That July the city paid Catelyn and Harman £50 each ‘for their pains and charges and expenses’ in attending Parliament. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 374.

Harman worked hard in Parliament to represent the city’s interests, particularly once the civil war brought with it innumerable new threats and burdens for its citizens. His many surviving letters show that he wrote regularly to the mayor when at Westminster during the war years. Add. 22619, ff. 23, 31, 49, 78, 83-6, 93, 97-101, 105-7, 111, 117-19, 124, 133-6, 146, 149, 159, 161, 164, 166, 173, 190, 208, 215-17, 230, 235-6; Add. 22620, ff. 20, 22. Initially, Catelyn, perhaps keen to overturn the conviction that only a freeman could properly represent the city, was just as diligent. In particular, he supported the attacks on Wren and sought to get the city’s subsidy assessment reduced. But his usefulness at Westminster ended when the civil war broke out and he developed doubts about supporting Parliament. In September 1642 he failed to participate in the execution of the Militia Ordinance in Norwich and was summoned to Westminster. CJ ii. 763a. The order was thrice repeated but Catelyn failed to comply and by the spring of 1643 the Great Yarmouth MP, Miles Corbett*, was openly calling for him to be expelled the House. CJ ii. 845b, 918b, iii. 15b, 77b; Harl. 169, ff. 340, 341v. In June 1643 the Commons fined him £200 for non-attendance and three months later ordered that his estates be sequestered. CJ iii. 140b, 244a-b, 256a; Harl. 165, f. 695. His continuing recalcitrance made it inevitable that he should be among the MPs disabled from sitting on 22 January 1644. CJ iii. 374a. Meanwhile, the members of the Norwich corporation who most strongly supported Parliament had managed to purge those aldermen who were least enthusiastic. Other, slower changes to the composition of the corporation also worked to the parliamentarians’ advantage, so by the time Catelyn’s successor was chosen, they had gained undisputed control over civic affairs. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 125-8, 131-8.

The writ for a by-election to choose Catelyn’s replacement was ordered on 30 September 1645. CJ iv. 295b. Seven weeks later, on 19 November, the city re-elected Atkin who had just completed his term as lord mayor of London. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 64. (That date was one whose anniversary Atkin would note in later years. Add. 15903, ff. 61, 77.) Atkin had kept in touch with his old friends in Norwich. In January 1645 he had written to Tolye, then serving as mayor, offering to help the city in any way he could. Add. 19398, f. 148. No doubt the Norwich corporation more than ever wanted a friend whose power and influence in London was even weightier than it had been five years earlier. At least until the early 1650s, that calculation proved to be justified. Although frequently engaged on London business, Atkin, like Harman, regularly sent to the mayor and corporation news of his activities in Parliament on their behalf. Add. 22620, ff. 45-8, 54, 56, 60-6, 69, 76, 82, 84, 88-91, 94, 111-48, 152-64, 170-84; Add. 15903, ff. 61, 67-71, 77.

Richard Harman died on 2 December 1646. The new writ was moved five days later. CJ v. 3b. At the by-election held on 4 January 1647, the freemen chose the professional lawyer, Erasmus Earle*, who had been serving as the corporation’s steward for the past three years. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 66. Earle had taken his seat at Westminster by 25 January. Add. 22620, f. 45; CJ v. 61b. In these early days he was keen to make himself useful to the corporation. In early February he promised to promote the bill to unite some of the Norwich parishes, while on 8 February he spoke in the Commons in defence of the mayor, Henry Watts, who was being accused of having obstructed the work of the excise collectors. Add. 22620, ff. 50, 54.

An outbreak of trouble at Norwich in the spring of 1648 showed that many locals now distrusted Parliament. The choice of a former royalist, Roger Mingay, to fill an aldermanic vacancy that March called into question the loyalties of the mayor, John Utting, who, as a result, was summoned to London by the Commons. On 22 April a crowd of Utting’s supporters gathered to prevent his departure. A major riot then broke out, which was suppressed only when troops arrived and opened fire on the rioters. The subsequent parliamentary investigation blamed Tolye as well as Utting for inciting this disorder. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 172-82.

Both Atkin and Earle continued to sit after the purge of December 1648, although Atkin often complained to the city about Earle’s infrequent attendance in Parliament. Add. 22620, ff. 119, 121, 129, 137, 156, 162, 182; Add. 15903, f. 71. In May 1650 he told the mayor

I wish I had that help here that some places hath, my fellow burgess never yet came into the Parliament House since he came to London, but is taken up in Westminster Hall to his great advantage. I do admire at him, he having promised to do otherwise when he was chosen, if he will not assist in the work I hope God will please to do it without him. Add. 22620, f. 162.

Earle, who had recently become the corporation’s recorder, seems to have carried on regardless.

The corporation made occasional payments to its MPs. Harman received four payments totalling £125 between 1641 and 1646, three of which were described as for ‘pains and charges’ and one as a gratuity. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 374; Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 3, 13, 38v. On the other hand, the only payment to Catelyn was the £50 granted in July 1641. In November 1646, a year after his election, Atkin reminded the mayor that previous MPs had been paid. Add. 15903, f. 61. This not-very-subtle hint produced a result, as he was paid £50 three months later. A further payment of £50 followed in March 1649. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 48, 77.

Atkins was not satisfied, however, and arguments over his wages contributed to the eventual estrangement between him and his constituency. On 1 April 1650 he wrote to the mayor complaining that he had received nothing more and was ‘more neglected than any of my predecessors ever were’, adding that ‘what I suffer by your employment I am sensible of to my no small damage’. Add. 22620, f. 146. He wrote again, in stronger terms, on 21 November, having received no satisfaction. Claiming to have used ‘all means’ to have avoided serving as the city's MP, he bitterly protested that he was ’thus requited and dealt withal so, as never any of your burgesses, my predecessors were before’. He also reminded the mayor that the King’s Lynn MPs had secured an order from the Commons for the payment of their wages (an allusion to the order of 15 October 1642) and that Great Yarmouth and London paid their MPs’ wages as a matter of course. Add. 15903, f. 77. The corporation ignored both letters until the spring of 1651 when they resolved that, as their condition was ‘so low’, Atkin was to be instructed to try his luck with the committee of the Eastern Association, which owed money to the city for reducing Newark-on-Trent. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 112, 113v. That October the corporation resolved to send him £50 and a ‘plausible’ letter. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 120. This was probably too late. By now Atkin’s attendance in Parliament may have been only sporadic and there is no evidence that he was still lobbying on the corporation’s behalf; he had almost certainly stopped writing to the mayor. Since Earle was by then just as disengaged, Norwich was effectively unrepresented during the final years of the Rump. Neither Atkin nor Earle stood in any subsequent election, whether at Norwich or elsewhere.

Given its size and pre-eminence, there was never any question of Norwich losing either of its seats under the 1653 Instrument of Government. The election to the first protectorate Parliament was ultimately as acrimonious as that for the Long Parliament 14 years earlier. It was held on 12 July 1654, simultaneously with the poll for the county seats, and began without obvious problems. Charles George Cock*, the corporation steward, was nominated and, according to his supporters, it was ‘owned by all sides’ that this was ‘a free election, and that no man would stand in opposition to him, and that a poll as to him was wholly waived’. SP28/73, f. 217v. Cock was also a candidate for the county seats, but, with his election for the city apparently assured, the voting for him in the county poll was halted. Cock’s supporters then nominated his brother-in-law, Thomas Baret, one of the aldermen, for the other seat, but he was opposed by another alderman, the clothier Barnard Church*. Baret gave way to Church. Many then assumed the proceedings to be over and dispersed, at which the two city sheriffs, Christopher Jay and Roger Mingay, ‘by the never before used means of a trumpet and a bellman’, moved the poll to a different location. Mingay was the same ex-royalist whose nomination as an alderman had set off all the trouble in 1648 and to Cock’s supporters this was no more than a continuation of old rivalries; they thought that this deception amounted to the revival of ‘the old spirit which so long in so many choices they had opposed’. Moreover, they claimed that Jay and Mingay now allowed ‘all freemen’ to ‘vote freely of what quality soever, contrary to the predeclared judgement of the mayor and alderman’, suggesting that Cock and Church had been elected using a more restrictive franchise. SP28/73, f. 217v. The purpose of all this became clear when a fourth candidate, John Hobart*, came forward. As a resident of the city but not a freeman, he was in the same position as Catelyn, opening the possibility that the old arguments from 1640 would be revived. In a blatant display of favouritism, the sheriffs allegedly declared that Cock ‘must [go] to the poll or lose it’. Since many of Cock’s supporters had already departed, Church and Hobart were elected. SP28/73, f. 217v. According to the indenture, they had been chosen by the mayor, the corporation and ‘diverse other people qualified and capable’. C219/44, pt. 2, Norwich indenture, 12 July 1654.

Cock’s supporters, who thought of themselves as the ‘well affected’, now attempted to get this return overturned. They presented a petition to the lord protector asking him to uphold the election of Cock, who was ‘of known integrity and knoweth well the state and condition of our city’. SP28/73, ff. 217v-218. Hobart, in contrast, had been supported by a ‘crew of hostlers, tapsters, barrowmen, some whereof were no freemen, together with abundance of inferior and indigent people, some of them taking alms and some mutineers’. Cock’s supporters consequently believed that ‘the Instrument of Government was slighted as an affirmative law and the considerate restriction of elections to matter of estate was wholly excluded’. SP18/73, f. 217v. This petition was signed by 42 of the citizens, headed by Baret. A list of 59 other names, presumably other supporters, is filed with it. SP18/73, ff. 218, 219v-220. These confirm that Cock’s supporters were those steadfast parliamentarians who in 1648 had opposed Mingay’s election as an alderman and who had objected to the subsequent riot. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 206-7. The council of state took no action and the return in favour of Church and Hobart was allowed to stand. As the council’s powers to exclude MPs, based on the 21st clause of the Instrument of Government, required them to judge whether the person elected was properly qualified, the petitioners might have had more success if they had attacked Hobart directly rather than his supporters.

At their request, Hobart presented himself to the corporation on 21 August to be admitted as a freeman. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 153. He declared that he was flattered to be paired with Cock, but assured them that it was ‘no small affliction to my spirit to see myself a stumbling block and wall of separation in this city’. In a gesture of reconciliation, he also expressed hope that those who had opposed his election had been successful, as he would have preferred not to lose ‘that privacy which hath been so long so great a blessing to me’. Bodl. Tanner 52, f. 114. Supposed reluctance to become involved in public life was a conventional rhetorical pose, but this was not the last time that Hobart voiced his distress over these events.

When this Parliament assembled in early September, Cromwell demanded that all MPs take an oath promising that they would not alter the current constitutional settlement. Most of the Norfolk MPs were reluctant to do so and Church and Hobart were two of the three who held out longest. Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. But they probably did take it eventually, as both were included on parliamentary committees later that same month. CJ vii. 370a, 370b.

That Hobart would seek re-election to the second protectorate Parliament was clear by 10 August 1656, when the deputy major-general for East Anglia, Hezekiah Haynes*, informed John Thurloe* that he was attempting to have Hobart ‘left out in the choice of the city’. That was because, according to Haynes, Hobart was ‘a person as closely maligning the government and good men as any other in Norfolk’. TSP v. 297. Haynes’s task was made more difficult by John Boatman, the minister of St Peter Mancroft, whom he believed to be instrumental in the growth of episcopacy and malignancy in Norwich. TSP iv. 217, 257, 302. Hobart was known to be ‘very conversant’ with Boatman and as he was ‘captain of all the more ordinary sort of people who have votes in the election’, Haynes feared his influence. TSP v. 297. He informed Thurloe on 15 August that he was continuing his efforts to prevent Hobart’s election. TSP v. 311. But on 20 August Hobart was indeed returned, in second place to Church. The indenture was exchanged between the sheriffs and 32 other named persons of the city. C219/45, pt. 2, Norwich indenture, 20 Aug. 1656. Soon afterwards an army officer, John Balleston, reported to Haynes a private conversation with Hobart as evidence of Hobart’s disaffection with the government. TSP v. 370. Not surprisingly, Hobart was excluded from Parliament at the beginning of the session. CJ vii. 425b; Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 16v; 52, ff. 156, 157, 168. On principle, he boycotted the brief second session of this Parliament in early 1658. Bodl. Tanner 52, ff. 158-161, 219-222.

Meanwhile, the city made a serious attempt to get its charters amended. The corporation had first set up a committee to look into the matter in January 1653. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 135. A second committee, appointed in May 1656, presented a draft of the new charter to the assembly after the election. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 172, 176. This was submitted to Oliver Cromwell* in the autumn of 1657, but the city were disappointed by the lack of government response. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 184v, 186v, 187. What specifically the corporation hoped to gain from any new charter is not known, but they continued to assert their loyalty. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 214-15. In the spring of 1658 they prepared a remonstrance proclaiming the city's ‘willing submission’ to Cromwell’s authority. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, ff. 191, 192v, 193. The following October the corporation sent an address to Richard Cromwell* congratulating him on his accession as lord protector. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 195v.

The election to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament appears to have been a more orderly affair than the previous contest. Factional divisions within the corporation had lessened to the extent that Mingay could now serve as mayor. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich, 222. William Barnham*, a hosier and former mayor, was elected in first place, with Hobart in second, by 27 named citizens and aldermen of Norwich (including Church) ‘and divers other able citizens’. C219/47, Norwich indenture, 17 Jan. 1659. Hobart took the opportunity in his acceptance speech to reflect on past events. Citing the speech that Nathaniel Fiennes I* had made in Parliament a year earlier, Hobart suggested that the civil war had been a mistake. Bodl. Tanner 51, f. 16; cf. The speech of the Right Honourable the Lord Fiennes (1658, E.934.6). He then criticised those who had opposed his elections in 1654 and 1656, claiming that this had depressed him, but declared their decision to re-elect him as grounds for hoping that these divisions could now be overcome. Bodl. Tanner 51, ff. 16-17.

On 24 February 1659, five weeks after the election, Hobart secured an agreement from the corporation that he would not be chosen for any civic office without his consent. The corporation again revived its attempts to amend the charters which ‘had so many defects and ancient grants to detriment of government and trade of the town’. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 197. But the political upheavals that soon swept away the protectorate made this an even less propitious time to seek a new charter. Both Atkin and Earle resumed their seats as the Norwich MPs in the revived Rump in the spring of 1659. That July Atkin presented a petition on an unknown subject from the corporation to Parliament. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1642-68, f. 202; CJ vii. 723b.