Newcastle-under-Lyme

Newcastle-under-Lyme lay on the main road between London and the north-west, close to Staffordshire’s borders with Cheshire and Shropshire. VCH Staffs. viii. 2. The earl of Huntingdon, who passed through Newcastle in 1636, described it as ‘a long town, the street [presumably the high street] very broad, ill paved and houses poor thatched and very few either tiled or slated’. HMC Hastings, iv. 338-9. Newcastle’s population in 1640 stood at about 900 – probably rising to a little over 1,000 by the 1660s – making it the smallest of Staffordshire’s three parliamentary boroughs. P. Clark, J. Hosking, Population Estimates of English Small Towns (Leicester, 1993), 133; ‘The 1666 hearth tax’ (Collns. for a Hist. of Staffs. 1921), 99-104. Its economy was sustained by ‘a great market on Monday for cattle, some horses and sheep, with plenty of provisions’, and various small-scale industries – most notably, the making of felt halts. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 205; VCH Staffs. viii. 45, 50-2.

By its 1590 royal charter, Newcastle was governed by a 27-strong common council, comprising a mayor, two bailiffs and 24 capital burgesses. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 54. The mayor and bailiffs were elected annually by the common council, and former mayors were styled aldermen but had no specific powers as such. The capital burgesses served for life and filled vacancies in their ranks by co-option from the freemen. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 60, 66-7, 71. Newcastle had first sent Members to Parliament in 1354; and, from 1624, the franchise was vested in the freemen, who numbered at least 144 by 1659. Admission to the freeman body was controlled by the common council. The returning officer was the mayor. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 33, 71, 332-3.

Newcastle’s dominant electoral interest by 1640 was that of Staffordshire’s lord lieutenant Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, whose main seat in the county, Chartley, lay about 12 miles from the borough. It had been Essex’s father who had procured Newcastle’s 1590 royal charter. However, from the early 1590s to the late 1620s the Devereux interest had been supplanted by that of local gentry or the duchy of Lancaster, to which the manor of Newcastle belonged. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 10, 47-8, 131-2; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Newcastle-under-Lyme’. In the elections at Newcastle to the Short Parliament, on 25 March 1640, the freemen returned Essex’s Pembrokeshire client Sir John Meyrick and another Welsh gentleman, Richard Lloyd. C219/42/2/14; Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 303. Lloyd was returned on the interest of his father-in-law Ralph Sneyd (father of Ralph Sneyde*) of nearby Keele, the lessee of the town castle and its mills and farmer of the manorial court. Infra, ‘Ralph Sneyde’; DL43/8/32; VCH Staffs. viii. 14-15, 48, 184-5; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Newcastle-under-Lyme’. In the elections to the Long Parliament, the town returned Sir Richard Leveson and Meyrick on 13 October 1640. C219/43/2/184; Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 304. Leveson’s main Staffordshire estate lay at nearby Trentham, and he had represented the borough in the 1624 Parliament. Infra, ‘Sir Richard Leveson’. In neither of the 1640 elections at Newcastle is there any indication of a contest; and in 1641, the mayor noted the alacrity and sense of unity with which the common council and freemen took the Protestation. Staffs. RO, D862/2/30; HMC 5th Rep. 141.

The civil war divided the town’s MPs, with Leveson taking the king’s side and Meyrick joining the staff of the earl of Essex, the commander of Parliament’s main field army. The town itself was closely associated with two of the period’s most prominent parliamentarians – Thomas Harrison I* (the son of a Newcastle butcher) and the king’s trial judge John Bradshawe* of Congleton, Cheshire, whom the common council elected as the town’s steward (senior legal officer) in August 1641. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 153-4, 159. Newcastle’s eponymous castle was ‘altogether decayed’ by 1642; and being militarily untenable, the town was garrisoned by neither side during the war. VCH Staffs. viii. 14; Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 162. Nevertheless, it contributed to the king’s war-chest in October 1642 and again (under duress) in the spring of 1644, when it was plundered by the royalists, prompting the mayor (Thomas Harrison’s father) ‘and divers other honest men of Newcastle’ to seek military assistance from the commander of Parliament’s west midlands association, Basil Feilding, 2nd earl of Denbigh. CSP Dom. 1644, p. 177; Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 159, 164-5. The actions of the mayor and his colleagues in 1644 suggest that a majority of the leading townsmen were parliamentarian in sympathy. The relatively generous stipend (£60) that the corporation bestowed upon the town’s minister – the Presbyterian and ‘painful’ preaching minister Zachary Crofton – in 1647 is perhaps further evidence of this political bias. Z. Crofton, Malice against Ministry (1657), 6-7 (E.931.5); VCH Staffs. viii. 17, 19; Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 121-2, 312; Calamy Revised, 144. The successors to Crofton that the corporation appointed as town minister between 1649 and 1662 were either Presbyterians or orthodox puritans of some description. Pape, Newcastle-Under-Lyme, 123-9; VCH Staffs. viii. 56; Calamy Revised, 242, 327, 451.

On 25 September 1645, the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for a new election at Stafford to replace Leveson, who had been disabled from sitting in November 1642. CJ iv. 287b. The seat was contested by Bradshawe and the London draper Samuel Terricke, whose father had twice served as mayor of Newcastle and was a man of considerable influence in the borough. Infra, ‘Samuel Terricke’. On election day, 4 November 1645, 134 of the freemen turned out to return Terricke, apparently without a contest. Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 310. The election indenture has not survived. The commander of Parliament’s forces in the north west, Sir William Brereton*, who was a friend and electoral patron of Bradshawe, alleged that

before ever the writs issued out, there had been much labouring and anticipating of voices [at Newcastle] as did much corrupt the election ... Mr Bradshawe (their steward) ... is highly esteemed amongst all the honest and sufficient men in the town, who gave him their voices and uttermost assistance. Yet it was carried by the meaner sort of people for ... Terricke ... whose father was conversed [conversant] with all upon the election day touching the same and said he would try what they could do for his Bull and his Boar [a Newcastle inn], whereof they had the constant use. Some also there are in the town who that day [election day] published a most false and scandalous report touching Mr Bradshawe, as though he should have been formerly sent with and advised Sir Francis Wortley [a royalist officer] when he first made an inroad into that county. Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 216.

At least four of the freemen who had assented to Terricke’s election were willing to testify – should Brereton require it – that Terricke’s supporters had used smear tactics against Bradshawe. Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 207-8. Brereton further alleged that Terricke had been elected by ‘the ill-affected rabble’ and that he was ‘a neuter at best’. Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 218. However, there is nothing in the corporation minutes to substantiate the idea of a major political divide among the freemen. Terricke prevailed largely, it seems, because his local connections as a native of the town and the son of a popular man in the borough were stronger than those of Bradshawe (who resided mostly in London), not because he had the backing of an ‘ill-affected’ party. That said, it is likely that he enjoyed the support of the royalist, but still influential, Sir Richard Leveson. Infra, ‘Samuel Terricke’; Brereton Lttr. Bks. ii. 217, 557.

Brereton’s allegation that Terricke was a ‘neuter’ is also an exaggeration, although it seems that Terricke’s principal reason for securing a seat at Westminster was to avoid his many creditors – he certainly showed very little interest in the Long Parliament’s proceedings. Infra, ‘Samuel Terricke’. Indeed, it is something of a mystery as to why he was excluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648. Perhaps it was a case of Brereton and Bradshawe gaining their revenge. Meyrick, too, was excluded – in his case, as a prominent Presbyterian – leaving Newcastle without formal representation in the Rump.

Newcastle retained one of its seats under the Instrument of Government of 1653; and in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament it returned Edward Keling on 7 July 1654. Although Keling resided in Stepney, Middlesex, and owned no property in the borough, he was the son of a former alderman (Thomas), the younger brother of one of the town’s MPs in the 1620s (John) and the uncle of a serving alderman (Ralph). Infra, ‘Edward Keling’; Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 146; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘John Keeling’. His nephew Ralph was among the 54 freemen listed in the corporation minutes as parties to the election. Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 324. And as well as having friends and relations among the townsmen, Keling was well-connected at the Cromwellian court through his son-in-law Nathaniel Waterhouse*, who was the lord protector’s cousin and steward. Infra, ‘Edward Keling’; ‘Nathaniel Waterhouse’. The election indenture has survived, but is badly torn. C219/44/2/16.

On 15 August 1656, in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament, Newcastle returned the local gentry landowner John Bowyer, whose grandfather had represented the borough in 1597 and 1604. Infra, ‘John Bowyer’. Fifty of the freemen were listed as parties to the election, although only a handful are named in the election indenture. C219/45, unfol.; Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 328. Predictably for a man of Bowyer’s Presbyterian sympathies, he was among those excluded by the protectoral council for disaffection to the government. The town regained its two seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, which saw the return on 1 January 1659 of Major-general Tobias Bridge and Keling. Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 332. Bridge, an Essex man by birth, had served as major general for Staffordshire, Cheshire and Lancashire in the mid-1650s and was highly regarded at the Cromwellian court – which probably explains his popularity with the freeman. Infra, ‘Tobias Bridge’. One hundred and forty four of the freemen registered their assent, which is the highest recorded turnout of any election during the period. Pape, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 332-3. The indenture has not survived.

Newcastle was represented in the 1660 Convention by two of its former MPs, Bowyer and Terricke. The strength of parliamentarian feeling among the leading townsmen is highlighted by the corporation commissioners’ removal of 14 members of the corporation in 1663. HP Commons 1660-1690.