Southwark

South of the Thames and commanding the unique pedestrian crossing to the City, London Bridge, Southwark had long-standing strategic importance. Its size too conferred considerable significance: by 1603 it was ‘the second biggest urban area in England, surpassing ... its nearest rival Norwich’ by an estimated 4,000 inhabitants. J. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society (1987), 20-1, 289; W. Camden, Britain (1637), 303. Returns from a census of 1631, amplified by parish register evidence, suggest a population in excess of 25,000, while by 1678 there were over 7,500 households. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 15, 19. Furthermore, Southwark hosted key industries, including some banished from the City owing to their unpleasant by-products. Leather processing and candle and soap manufacture were long-established; newer industries such as brewing, dyeing and glass-making had arrived; a small but notable body of immigrants contributed to the production of commodities like luxury tin-glazed earthenware and felt goods. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 66-71; R. Weinstein, ‘London at the outbreak of the civil war’, London and the Civil War ed. S. Porter (1996), 38-9. Alongside this, straddling the roads south through Surrey to Sussex, the borough contained many inns and was a centre of leisure activities in the form of theatres, brothels, and the parks which occupied some of its many open spaces – the Paris Garden and the Bear Garden. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 21, 62-3.

Since the reformation, Southwark had consisted of four parishes. The largest was St Saviour’s, divided into the Boroughside, immediately to the south of the Bridge, and the liberties of the Clink prison and Paris Garden, westwards towards Lambeth. Only the Boroughside was technically within the borough; close to the main highway, it contained a celebrated market and specialised in food and drink retailing. Immediately to the east and also abutting the river was St Olave’s, running downstream to Bermondsey. Bisected by the main road to Kent, it included the large open fields of Horsleydown, but was also home to shipbuilding and maritime-related trades, the dirtier industries and a disproportionate number of the poor. To the south was St Thomas’s, with its famous hospital, and St George’s, site of Southwark’s other four prisons and the fields where the militia drilled. E. Leigh, England Described (1659), 191 (E.1792.2); Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 62–3; Weinstein, ‘London’, 38.

With the exceptions of the St Saviour’s liberties (which included the Bankside theatres) and the St George’s areas of the Mint and King’s Bench, since 1550 Southwark had been under the jurisdiction of the City of London, incorporated as the 26th ward of Bridge Without. For a borough which ‘had for centuries possessed an identity as a town in its own right’, this constituted a grievance: neither its alderman nor other City officers were chosen by the inhabitants. D. J. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 317-18; V. Pearl, London and the Puritan Revolution (1961), 28. However, Isaac Penington*, elected alderman in January 1639 perhaps because, as a Fishmonger, he had a connection to the local royal fishponds, was like many of his predecessors resident elsewhere and only rarely active in representing local interests. Already from about 1635 the office itself was becoming less important, with more and more business being undertaken by Surrey justices of the peace; their priorities could be even more divergent. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 151-2, 237-8, 412. This development in turn caused friction between Surrey and the City. SP16/451, f. 213.

The court of aldermen continued to appoint the steward of the borough court, one institution which in other respects did offer a form of self-government, and also the bailiff. Admitted to the latter office in February 1633, ten months later William Gore obtained authorisation to devolve his powers to a deputy, Samuel Warcupp, brother-in-law of Sir John Lenthall, marshal of the King’s Bench prison in St George’s, and the Long Parliament Speaker, William Lenthall*. Just before Gore resigned his post in 1655, Warcupp died, whereupon the aldermen appointed Giles Warcupp, in recognition of his father’s good service. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 192-3, 410.

The parliamentary elections over which the Warcupps presided throughout this period provided an opportunity for the venting of pent-up frustrations over lack of representation down other avenues. The borough first sent Members to Parliament in 1295 and enjoyed a franchise ‘as wide as anywhere’. Indentures for this period mention burgesses or in 1654, as in 1625, burgesses and inhabitants, but eligibility seems to have rested on ‘scot and lot’ and potentially included scores of voices, as seen in signatories to complaints over the conduct of the 1654 election. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 318; C219/44; SP18/74, ff. 122, 130. Whereas between 15 and 20 voters were mentioned in returns during the early Stuart period, the surviving returns for the mid-century, even that for the allegedly minority choice in 1654, there were over 30 signatures. C219/42, pt. ii; C219/43 pt. ii/197.

The potential for hotly-contested elections, demonstrated vividly in 1624, contributed to Southwark’s reputation for disorderliness. HP Commons 1604-1629. Volatility stemmed from the presence of five prisons, which in the years before 1640 provoked unrest within and riots outside, especially in St George’s parish. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 267. The existence of privileged places excluded from City jurisdiction made the suburb a natural resort for Londoners in debt or other trouble, and not only the brothels but also the theatres and pleasure gardens gave cause for disquiet. Some commerce and industry was located there precisely to escape the guild regulation and restrictive practices of the City. Yet the case for ungovernability can be taken too far. Particularly in Boroughside there were elements making for stability. Here a large number of wealthy householders were also citizens of London and the powerful vestry of St Saviour’s, which contributed more than its share of subsidy collectors and similar officials. Despite the fact that the latter was an unwieldy parish with 4,000 to 5,000 putative communicants and an acknowledged difficulty in accommodating all who came to hear sermons, it managed to achieve high levels of attendance at the Eucharist. Before the ecclesiastical upheavals of 1641 there were surprisingly few Roman Catholics and separatists. Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society, 153, 217, 235, 265, 267, 270-4; HMC 6th Rep. 40. The sectaries so hated by John Taylor the water poet, a St Saviour’s resident, largely emerged thereafter. W. Rendle, Old Southwark and its People (1878), 80.

Elections of 1640

None the less, resentments over the religious policy of Charles I’s personal rule and other contentious matters were evidently coming to a head in Southwark by early 1640. Elected to Parliament for the borough in the first place on 19 March was Robert Holborne*, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer who had distinguished himself by acting as defence counsel in several high-profile cases brought by the crown. He had stood on 27 February at Westminster, where, as a candidate with ‘least relation to the court’, he had been considered to have the best chance, but had been unsuccessful. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 235-6. According to one commentator, he was neither present at the Southwark poll ‘nor as much as seeking for it’, which if true makes his election the more noteworthy, especially since local officeholder Sir John Lenthall apparently stood against him and intended to contest the return. Add. 11045, f. 97. No such challenge surfaced during the short parliamentary session. The choice in the second place of Richard Tuffnayle* reflected more longstanding concerns. An incomer to the borough through marriage to the heiress of a pious local merchant, he was a brewer and a colonial investor, thus representing commercial and maritime interests; as a close associate of the vicar of St Saviour’s he conformed to the tradition of selecting at least one member of that vestry. PROB11/184/6; HP Commons 1604-1629.

After the dissolution of the Parliament Southwark provided its share of those who refused to pay coat and conduct money towards the king’s campaign in the north. Defaulters in St Olave’s included distiller George Snellinge*, a signatory to the March election indenture, and in St Thomas’s, two churchwardens. SP16/453, f. 246; C219/42, pt. ii. More singular and subversive were the ‘traitorous and rebellious assemblies’ which erupted in May in Southwark and adjacent Lambeth and Blackheath, directed partly at privy councillor William Laud’s archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth and partly at royal policy generally. The bulk of the responsibility for quashing the manifestations was accorded to the deputy lieutenants and justices of Surrey, in charge of the watch and of amassing the Southwark trained bands in St George’s Fields, thus reinforcing the trend away from City control. SP16/452, f. 273; SP16/453, ff. 28, 94-9, 193; CSP Dom. 1640, p. 182; Johnson, Southwark and the City, 155.

The fact that over the summer Holborne was perceived to be drawing closer to the court probably precluded his re-election in the autumn, if indeed he sought it in Southwark. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 285, 293, 296, 305-6, 309, In his stead another combative lawyer was selected in the shape of Edward Bagshawe*, who having already crossed swords with Archbishop Laud in the court of high commission, had been silenced that March after questioning in his Lent readings the temporal power of the clergy, thereby becoming something of a popular hero. Once again, the initiative had apparently come from the constituency. Bagshawe claimed later that he had been elected ‘unanimously’, ‘without asking, or seeking, or stepping one foot out of my chamber in the Middle Temple’. SP16/447, f. 66v; E. Bagshaw, A Just Vindication (1660), 3 (E.1019.6). His partner on this occasion was his Middle Temple colleague John White II*, who in addition to having been one of the feoffees for impropriations, suppressed by Laud and others in 1633 for their activities in buying up church patronage for the benefit of ‘godly’ preaching, had long been involved in puritan colonial projects. The choice – perhaps encouraged by some of the opposition grandees who were White’s colonial associates – surely signalled an intention by activists in the borough to engage the agency of Members who would mount a robust attack on unpopular royal policies. This time there is no evidence of a challenge by Sir John Lenthall; William Lenthall, who had been defence counsel for White in the 1632-3 exchequer proceedings against the feoffees, might conceivably have been a player in this.

Southwark and Parliament, 1640-6

The confidence reposed in the MPs was soon called in. Bagshawe recorded that ‘presently after my choosing’ he was presented ‘by some of the chief of that borough’ with a petition requesting ‘the total extirpation of episcopacy, root and branch, as likewise of the Book of Common Prayer’, which they asked him to present to the House of Commons. His eyes opened to their original intent, Bagshawe claimed that ‘I understood them, but they understood not me’, so he ‘dealt clearly with them’, revealing his preference for a reformed, regulated episcopacy, firmly subordinate to royal supremacy, and declaring that ‘this way I thought the Parliament would go’. At first ‘they seemed to me fully satisfied, and the petition stopped’, but when they consulted White he endorsed it, and the document was handed to Alderman Penington (a sign that this official still had some utility locally). By the time Penington delivered it to the House it had, Bagshawe alleged, 16,000 signatures. Bagshaw, A Just Vindication, 3.

At two-thirds of the population, even if Bagshawe’s figure is accurate, it suggests that Southwark initiatives gathered support from beyond the confines of the borough. As religious and political tensions mounted through 1641, it became not just a regular source of representations to Parliament, but also an apparent hotbed of radicalism and sectarianism, accompanied by social deprivation with fiscal as well as policing implications. In January 1641 Edmund Chillenden, the future Baptist, and over 60 others were convoked by the constables and churchwardens of St Saviour’s before justice of the peace Sir John Lenthall, accused of spurning their parish church in favour of private meetings. SP16/476, f. 119; ‘Edmund Chillenden’, Oxford DNB. By 15 June three churchwardens from St Olave’s – including one Cornelius Cooke – were in the custody of the Lords' gentleman usher following disorder surrounding the removal of communion rails; they seem to have colluded in the more violent actions of others, although the Lords appear to have accepted their defence that they sought to contain the trouble by acting on the preferences of the ‘godly’ and they were released. LJ iv. 271b, 276a, 277b; viii. 270a-b. One petition against the ‘insupportable grievance’ of the export of leather claimed that St Olave’s contained over 3,600 families, of whom a 2,800 were supposedly too poor to pay subsidies and other taxes. An Humble Petition and Remonstrance concerning the transportation of leather (1641), 2. Some later commentators celebrated as a providential sign the autumn’s ‘mighty and tumultuous rising of apprentices and seamen’ in Southwark, which again had among its targets the archbishop’s palace. All the Memorable Wonder-striking Parliamentary Mercies (1642), 2 (E.116.49); J. Vicars, A Sight of Ye Transactions (1646), 4-5 (E.365.6). On 12 December a Brownist ‘impudently and insolently stepped up into the pulpit’ at St George’s. The Cobler’s End (1641); Rendle, Old Southwark, 80. Two days later, investigating unrest in Southwark and elsewhere, the Commons heard that Surrey justices of the peace including Sir John Lenthall had ordered the impanelling of a jury to enquire into ‘certain riots and routs’. ‘A long debate of near upon two hours’ ensued, during which Speaker Lenthall demonstrated the legality of their action, but all the same the House resolved that the justices’ proceedings should be stayed. CJ ii. 342a; D’Ewes (C), 283.

At this juncture, when the very continuation of the session appeared to some to hang by the thread of popular demonstration in its support, a majority in Parliament evidently wished neither to alienate the City on which it so much relied by privileging the jurisdiction of Surrey, nor to silence Southwark dissent completely. In the early months of 1642 Parliament regularly received representations from the borough, and employed its own MPs, its alderman and well-known parliamentary leaders to mollify, channel and harness discontents and enthusiasms. According to diarist Simonds D’Ewes*, in the tense aftermath of the king’s attempt to arrest the Five Members ‘divers members of the borough of Southwark’ came forward offering their trained bands to help defend Westminster, but their advance was politely deflected:

we told them that we hoped that the city of London would take care for our guard, but we accepted their offer with thanks and desired them to be in the fields about Lambeth and Southwark in their arms. D’Ewes (C), 401.

Unlike the action of Westminster and Middlesex forces, this was not recorded in the Journal (11 Jan.), hinting at a degree of concern that rivalries and animosities might be stirred by Southwark soldiers operating in a jurisdiction not their own. CJ ii. 370a-371a. Clarification came on 28 January with an order that Southwark trained bands were to be raised by the sheriff of Surrey, albeit, as with those in London and Middlesex, with the advice of Major-general Philip Skippon*. CJ ii. 401a.

A week later ‘the women of Southwark’ submitted a petition, delivered to the House by a reluctant but intimidated Bagshawe, requesting assistance for Protestant women suffering as a result of the Irish rebellion. This apparently unprecedented female lobbying – which was entered in the Journal as being from London and the suburbs – elicited an emollient response, delivered by the formidable team of Bagshawe, White, Penington, John Pym* and William Strode I*. CJ ii. 413a; PJ i. 277, 278. On 2 April an order conceded that constables and collectors for Southwark could pay in £600 raised towards the relief of Protestant refugees from Ireland directly to treasurers appointed by Parliament, rather than to the sheriff of Surrey, as stipulated in the initiating ordinance. CJ ii. 509b. Like many parishioners nationwide, some at St Olave’s presented a petition that spring complaining about actions by churchwardens or clergy, but it was perhaps symptomatic of the peculiarly sensitive and contentious circumstances there that the Commons issued orders for keeping the peace while the matter was decided (14 Apr., 24 May). CJ ii. 527a, 585a, 698b. The fragility of that peace had already been demonstrated that spring by a serious riot at King’s Bench prison, which had drawn in local residents and put the sheriff of Surrey and Sir John Lenthall at loggerheads. LJ iv. 624a-b, 632a.

Some time between 12 May and 11 August, when he was disabled from sitting, Holborne abandoned the Westminster Parliament, but as the country slid towards war some of his onetime constituents were in the vanguard of preparations. CJ ii. 567b, 715a. On 29 July Daniel Mercer, a signatory to the April 1640 election indenture, and Jeremiah Baines*, both of St Olave’s, petitioned for assistance in a case which had come to the assizes, mentioning the service they had done in removing from a maypole a proclamation regarding the king’s commission of array. CJ ii. 695b. The Commons decided to take no action, but Mercer and Baines were named on 6 August to a group overseeing security in Southwark. CJ ii. 707a. So too were George Snellinge and others whose names recur in the 1640 indenture and parliamentary ordinances of the 1640s – notably vintner Cornelius Cooke (unusually, a conspicuous Surrey figure as well as in St Olave’s), William Langham, and Peter De Lannoy*. CJ ii. 707a, 858b; C219/42, pt. ii; A. and O.; HMC 6th Rep. 111-12; LJ vi. 101b; viii. 270a-b. On the 13th the borough’s remaining MP, White, who persevered in zeal, headed a committee instructed to formalize instructions for guards to be there, explicitly described as a precedent for Middlesex and other parts of the kingdom. CJ ii.719b. Resulting orders, agreed by the Commons on the 18th and the Lords on the 20th, put the same men in charge; a disproportionate number of the most familiar were from St Olave’s, raising the possibility that its parishioners were challenging the previous dominance of St Saviour’s. CJ ii. 725a, 726b; LJ v. 307a; Johnson, Southwark and the City, 156. The considerable strategic significance of this policing and control of the south bank meant that they could not readily be ignored. The designation of Winchester House, former London home of the bishop, as a sixth prison (11 Nov.), and the confinement of many prisoners-of-war and delinquents in the borough – eventually including, in June 1644, erstwhile MP Edward Bagshawe – merely added to the potentially combustible mix; so too did the sick parliamentarian soldiers at St Thomas’s hospital. e.g. CJ ii. 826b, 844b, 862b, 961b, 969a; iii. 549a; Harl. 166, f. 78v. The poor were a constant concern. e.g. L. Lee, A Remonstrance humbly presented to Parliament (1645) 4 (E.273.8).

The issue of who controlled Southwark, and in particular its militia, was exacerbated by war. Through 1642 and 1643 tensions between the borough and the City, and ‘the tussle’ between the jurisdictions of Surrey and the City, continued to surface before the House, which regularly re-assigned final authority. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 155–8. In November 1642 Southwark men fought under Surrey men during the royalist incursion into the county, but ordinances of 26 November and 7 December placed Southwark with Westminster and the City for assessment purposes, and in succeeding months military matters too passed into City control, although there were occasional small gestures towards local autonomy and figures like Sir John Lenthall (still a Surrey justice), Cooke, Mercer and Snellinge were a constant presence. A. and O.; CJ ii. 895b-896a, 946a, 952a, 962a, 989a; iii. 44a, 244b; LJ vi. 82a. It fell to the sub-committee of Southwark to suppress bear-baiting when it attracted suspicious persons (30 Nov. 1643). CJ iii. 325b.

The service of Southwark forces under the commander Sir William Waller – which left them, according to one newspaper in July 1644, in remarkably good heart – may well have forged links with officers later to form the New Model army, and encouraged local political pretensions. Perfect Occurrences no. 30 (12-19 July 1644); CJ iii. 653a-b. On 6 August 1645 Colonel John Venn*, a supporter of Waller and a London MP, presented Southwark’s petition for a by-election, Bagshawe having been permanently expelled and White having died that January. CJ iv. 232b. Many constituencies had vacancies arising from parallel circumstances, but once again Southwark was ‘forwardest’. Perfect Occurrences no. 37 (22-29 Aug. 1645), sig. Nn1v (E.264.3). During the long debate which ensued, there were ‘many in the House’ who considered that acceding to the request would set a regrettable precedent – ‘a leading case to many other corporations, boroughs and counties that had no Members to serve for them’ – and also worried that it entailed the as yet untried deployment of a writ under Parliament’s, as opposed to the royal, seal. Add. 31116, p. 451. Consideration of the question narrowly escaped postponement and potential oblivion (14 Aug.), but a grand committee soon recommended the issue of such a writ (21 Aug.). CJ iv. 241b, 249a; Add. 31116, p. 453; Perfect declaration of the Proceedings in Parliament no. 17 (16 Aug. 1645).

A pointer to the influences operating outside the historical record, on 4 September Southwark militia men were sent to swell Venn’s forces surrounding the obstinate royalist garrison at Basing House. CJ iv. 263b. At the election just a week later George Snellinge of St Olave’s was returned along with one of his business partners, Colonel George Thomson*. A relative newcomer to the borough, Thomson had acquired local standing through marriage to the widow of Short Parliament MP Richard Tuffnayle and had served under Waller; the loss of a leg at the battle of Cheriton in 1644 had been reported in London not to have dinted his commitment to the godly cause. Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xvii), 282; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. liv), 164 ; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 33; Add. 46500, f. 96; Juxon Jnl. 49-50. Suspicion that the election was at least partly set up by those who wished to ensure that the Commons would have more Members keen to prosecute war more decisively appears confirmed by the fact that, within the next few weeks, Snellinge and Thomson, together or separately, and sometimes with Venn, received several appointments connected either to the formation of the New Model army or to other related projects. CJ iv. 299a, 304b, 307b, 311b, 318a.

With close connections to the Southwark militia, the pair were to prove invaluable to the Independent leadership. Neither the militia nor the borough was easily managed, as is evidenced by further petitions reaching the House early in 1646. CJ iv. 420a, 434b, 441a. According to the Presbyterian controversialist Thomas Edwards, ‘many of the sectaries of Southwark’ had before the previous autumn’s election proposed the Levellers John Lilburne and William Walwyn as candidates and initially succeeded in persuading ‘godly men’ of the borough to endorse this, until the latter discovered that these were ‘dangerous’ men. T. Edwards, The first and second part of Gangraena (1646), 46, ‘23’; The third part of Gangraena (1646), 232 (E.368.5). In comparison, Snellinge and Thomson should have seemed moderate.

Southwark and Parliament 1647-53

However, by the spring of 1647 Presbyterians were in the ascendant in the Commons and there was a discernible assault on Southwark’s pretensions to autonomy. On the one hand, on 2 April MPs rejected a move to cap Southwark’s proportionate share of taxation in relation to the rest of Surrey at existing levels; these were already high – a state perhaps justifiable demographically but not perceived as equitable in the light of the many in the borough too poor to pay. CJ v. 135a. On the other hand, a fortnight later Parliament authorized the Common Council of London to appoint a militia committee to command all areas within the lines of communication, including Southwark; the exclusively Presbyterian body approved on 4 May was doubly offensive to borough officials and activists. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 158-9. Samuel Hyland* of St Saviour’s, the leading petitioner in a Leveller-inspired manifesto presented to the Commons on 20 May, later complained that the Presbyterian-dominated City militia ‘put forth’ from the Southwark section ‘divers persons of approved fidelity and trust, only for difference in judgement’, and substituted ‘malignants’. CJ v. 179b; Clarke Pprs. i. 154. Radical sectaries, moderate Independents and non-doctrinaire localists now had common cause.

Following the Presbyterian coup of 26 July, officers of the Southwark trained bands (some previously re-instated after army pressure) refused to act under City commanders and appealed to Sir Thomas Fairfax* and the New Model for assistance. The action of the soldiers and local authorities on 4 August in admitting an army brigade into Southwark, and thus within the City’s defences, played a decisive role in the overthrow of the coup, opening the way for Independent MPs who had fled to the army to return to the House. This the Commons acknowledged and approved on 6 August when it sent Thomson, Snellinge and others to thank ‘the seamen, watermen and boroughmen of Southwark’ for descending on Westminster ‘for a more safe sitting of Parliament’. Johnson, Southwark and the City, 160; J. Vicars, A brief review (1652), 23 (E.693.2); CJ v. 268b; Clarendon, Hist. iv. 247. The fact that Cornelius Cooke’s property at ‘Bridge foot’ had access by stairs to the river and the bridge may have facilitated their passage. SP25/91, f. 281.

Unsurprisingly, there was a backlash. ‘Southwark-men, who are but traitors’ were mocked and derided in publications. e.g. The armies letanie (1647); The cities thankes to Southwarke (1647, 669.f.11.71). On 11 August Captain-lieutenant William Braine of Colonel John Hardwicke’s Southwark militia complained to the Commons of ‘assaults made upon himself, by words and blows, and upon others inhabitants of ... Southwark, for their endeavours to prevent the effusion of blood and engagement in a new war’ and for assisting the army to preserve peace. CJ v. 271a. Parliament reiterated its gratitude and approval, but insults and violence continued: petitions presented by radical MP Henry Marten* from the borough (20 Aug.) and by Colonel Hardwicke on his own behalf (23 Aug.) depicted continuing defamation and violence. LJ ix. 383b; CJ v. 279b; HMC 6th Rep. 193b.

Not all those who defied the Presbyterians had their aspirations met. A petition from ‘some that dwell in London and Southwark’ for ‘a farther purging the House, even to all that acted’ during the coup (16 Sept.), made no progress. Moderate Intelligencer no. 130 (9-16 Sept 1647), 1271 (E.407.12); Perfect Occurrences no. 37 (10-17 Sept 1647), 156 (E.518.33). The prospect of a mayor and corporation for the borough – anticipated by some as the reward for the ‘brave entertainment’ given to Fairfax’s troops – did not materialize. Blacke Tom, his Speech to the House (1647, 669.f.11.84); Johnson, Southwark and the City, 160. But on 9 September Lords and Commons agreed an ordinance giving the Southwark militia independence of the City, with equivalent powers to similar bodies everywhere else; the committee nominated included, in addition to the two MPs, Cooke, Hardwicke, Hyland and De Lannoy. CJ v. 297a, 299b; LJ ix. 431a. On 30 October an ordinance was passed appointing as rector of St Olave’s William Ames, pronounced ‘a godly, learned and orthodox divine’ but probably the Harvard-educated son and namesake of the celebrated semi-nonconformist theologian, who by 1650 was in Congregationalist ministry in Suffolk. CJ v. 346a; ‘William Ames (1576-1633)’, Oxford DNB; Calamy Revised, 10.

In spite of Thomson and Snellinge’s ongoing efforts in Parliament on its behalf, the independence of the militia proved fragile. CJ v. 334b, 527b, 528b, 531a. Leveller resurgence, royalist insurgence and then the prospect of peace with the king challenged the balance of power at Westminster and the relations of Parliament with the City. In August 1648, despite local representations, the militias of Southwark, Westminster and Tower Hamlets were reunited with, and placed under the authority of, the City. CJ v. 583b, 630a, 654b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 14-15, 43-4; Johnson, Southwark and the City, 162-3; A discoverie of the intentions of the army (1648), 1 (669.f.12.75) Resistance rumbled on into the autumn. e.g. Designes Unmasqued (1648, E.462.12).

The tide turned again after Pride’s Purge on 6 December. While they avoided implication in the trial and execution of the king, thereafter both of Southwark’s MPs sat in the Rump, Thomson proving to be one of its most prominent, industrious and well-connected Members, while Cornelius Cooke, ‘a man who with much good affection hath laid out himself in the service of the commonwealth’, was appointed a judge in the high court of justice and a commissioner for the sale of crown lands. A. and O.; SP25/77, f. 84; SP25/91, f. 281v; SP46/97, ff. 93, 100. A series of acts re-located control ‘on the other side of the water’ from Westminster and reduced fiscal burdens: Southwark’s contribution to Surrey assessments was reduced to one-eighth (24, 30 Mar.), an undertaking subsequently honoured; Captain Monck of Southwark was made provost marshal for the whole of the south bank, with the same powers as his equivalent in the City (25 May); the militia was re-established as a separate entity (19 July) and later perpetuated (12 Aug. 1651). CJ vi. 88a, 129b, 173b, 176b, 181a, 217a, 265a, 619a. Petitioning (4 Dec. 1649) for either full incorporation in the City or a separate corporation to parallel the newly-created local body for the relief of the poor was less productive: counter-petitioning from the City and a refusal of the Commons to adjudicate led to stalemate. CJ vi. 329; Johnson, Southwark and the City, 165-6. On the other hand, a petition from Southwark on behalf of the tenants of the manor of the Maze received a more sympathetic and constructive response (14 Oct. 1652). CJ vii. 191a-b.

The borough had not become quiescent or harmonious. In October 1650 the council of state ordered that Thomson and Snellinge be spoken to about composing differences between them and other militia commissioners regarding preaching in the militia hall, which had been authorised as a place of worship by the council only the previous month. SP25/10, f. 64v; SP25/11, f. 10v; SP25/12, f. 20. Nevertheless, there were many signs that the agendas of the local ruling élite were aired in Parliament and on the council. In addition to the measures noted above, Snellinge (who died in 1651) brought in a bill to support preaching ministers (15 Feb. 1650). CJ vi. 365b. Thomson, rising in importance in naval affairs, represented and influenced the interests of at least some of his constituents engaged in ship-building and maritime trade.

Southwark was not directly represented in the Nominated Parliament of 1653, but resident Samuel Hyland of St Saviour’s, by this time a lay preacher, was put forward to serve for Surrey, though probably by churches in Kent. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 128. He was the author of the only extant published account of the Parliament’s proceedings. L. D. An Exact Relation (1654, E.729.6). Contrasting circumstances surrounded his election for Southwark to the first protectorate Parliament the following year.

Southwark and the protectorate 1654-9

With Thomson out of the running, owing to his opposition to the dissolution of the Rump and differences with the protectorate government, there were four candidates, and two partnerships, at the poll held on 27 June 1654. Hyland, and Robert Warcupp*, son of the bailiff, nephew of William Lenthall and a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer and Oxfordshire militiaman, faced the (by Southwark standards) rather more orthodox and well-entrenched pairing of Colonel John Hardwicke and Peter De Lannoy of St Saviour’s. Their respective alignments are difficult to determine precisely, but the latter probably stood primarily for the interests of the Southwark militia and the established élite (although Hardwicke, a soap-boiler, had been named to the high court of justice in 1653), whereas the other rather disparate pairing stood respectively for the radical tendency and (perhaps) simple personal interest. A. and O.; Archaeologia, lii. 141. The indenture returned to Westminster by Samuel Warcupp, declaring that Hyland and Robert Warcupp had been elected by the ‘burgesses and inhabitants’, listed about 28 of them and carried 13 seals and at least 25 signatures or marks; no familiar names are readily discernible. C219/44.

Objection to the declared result was voiced immediately. Mercurius Politicus no. 211 (22-29 June 1654), 3588 (E.745.6). Two petitions aired at the lord protector's council on 16 August, with 121 and 163 signatures (many of them on both), alleged that Warcupp senior had manipulated proceedings on polling day to advantage his son. SP18/74, ff. 122, 130. On an initial ‘orderly’ division, it was claimed in one of them, preferences for Hardwicke and De Lannoy were ‘greater by a third in the judgement of unbiased people’, including the under-sheriff, but Warcupp delayed a formal count and judgement. Eventually, he began, ignoring the inhabitants, taking the votes of ‘dangerous persons’, privileging his own party and ‘threatening some’. By this time the day was ‘far spent and a great rain falling, which enforced persons of quality to withdraw to neighbours’ houses’, whereupon he ‘hastily’ closed the poll and excluded many from voting. Signatories requested a fresh election, the removal of a ‘notoriously partial’ bailiff, and an adjudication as to whether voters should be worth at least £100 (presumably hoping for an affirmative). SP18/74, f. 122. The other petition pointed out that under the Instrument of Government, MPs were to be ‘persons of known integrity, fearing God and of good conversation’, elected by the majority. SP18/74, f. 130. Annexed papers gave further details of misdemeanours at the election and listed particular reasons disqualifying Hyland and Warcupp from taking their seats; De Lannoy’s brother Benjamin Lannoy and several militia captains endorsed items in the list. Partisans of the ‘victors’ had used both menaces and violence; Colonel Hardwicke had been struck twice; others also were beaten and abused. Hyland had made ‘a glossing speech ... thereby to wind himself into the people’s affections and forestall the electors’, ‘full of self-commendation’ and ‘gross untruths’, promising to restore fourfold any man he had ‘wronged ... a penny’. SP18/74, f. 124. As a justice of the peace he was guilty of condoning ‘whoredom and adultery’, miscarriage of justice, ‘sordid and sinful indulgence to profaners of the sabbath’, and ‘receiving bribes’, including ‘two lobsters’. He was also a friend of Levellers. Warcupp, condemned more cursorily, was an atheist, tippler, gamester and election fraudster, who had dispensed bribes and breached trust. SP18/74, ff. 132–3. It is plausible that the credibility of his candidature had also suffered in some quarters from the recent controversial proceedings against his uncle Sir John Lenthall over the latter’s tenure as marshal of the Upper Bench prison, although a petition of February 1654 from St Saviour’s parish testifying to satisfaction with Sir John was signed not just by Samuel Hyland but also by John Hardwicke. Sir J. Lenthall, The Case (1653); SP18/65, f. 100.

The comprehensive indictment received some attention, before disappearing from sight. Clarke Pprs. v. 203; SP18/75, f. 71; Mercurius Politicus no. 218 (10-17 Aug. 1654), 3700 (E.808.17); no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3716 (E.809.5). Warcupp, whose uncle Lenthall was elected Speaker at the opening of the Parliament in early September, received his first committee appointment on 3 November. CJ vii. 381a, 381b. After such electoral exertions, he made little visible impact in the chamber, although he was named (9 Nov.) to the committee discussing a new prison for the county of Surrey to supersede the White Lion in Southwark. CJ vii. 383b. Hyland’s election seems to have been upheld only for him then to be excluded along with others considered dangerous to the commonwealth. Ludlow, Mems. i. 390.

The poll for the second protectorate Parliament in August 1656 left no record of electoral conflict, although an uncontested election seems very unlikely. This time Hyland, who had in the meantime built bridges to the regime, made good his return, along with Peter De Lannoy. As a merchant and dyer, the latter seemed to represent the borough’s trading interests as well as a relatively conservative mainstream puritan tradition. CJ vii. 440b, 442a, 515b, 589a; Woodhead, Rulers of London, 59. In contrast, Hyland remained a vocal radical, promoting legal reform, relief for debtors and the concerns of mariners and shipbuilding workers. E.g. CJ vii. 428a, 435b, 449a, 457b, 459a, 555a, 564a; Burton’s Diary, i. 357, 361, 364; ii. 4, 22-3, 90-1, 130, 160-1, 191, 333.

In the elections for the third protectorate Parliament, held shortly after 6 January 1659, there were more than six candidates (of whom four are known) and apparently a double return, although it is unclear which partnerships were in operation and to what extent the issues were political or merely personal. Clarke Pprs. iii. 172. The committee of privileges heard on 19 April, well into the session, that it had been ‘a very foul election’. Burton's Diary, iv. 467. George Thomson, whose seat was confirmed on that occasion, had some weeks earlier (12 Mar.) faced serious objections from several counsel, and even then was vulnerable – according to Thomas Burton – to the whole process being overturned. Burton's Diary, iv. 148. Andrew Brewer*, a rather obscure Grocer from St Saviour’s who had served as a churchwarden in 1651-2, died before 19 April and thus, although considered by some to have been elected, never had his case resolved. The election of John Lenthall*, nephew of Sir John and son of the erstwhile Speaker, was ‘voted null’ on this occasion, but since he had also been returned for Abingdon, Berkshire, this was something of a formality. The other known aspirant was Colonel Nathaniel Rich*, a maverick millenarian of distinguished antecedents but no discernible connection to Southwark, whose campaign was supposedly ‘managed’ by Jeremiah Baines*, himself a protectorate loyalist. Burton's Diary, iv. 467; Clarke Pprs. iii. 172. Neither Rich nor his sponsor seem to have realised any of their electoral aspirations this time. Thomson and John Lenthall, on the other hand, were active in the Parliament, with the latter resuming former preoccupations and voicing moderate and pragmatic opinions.

Southwark and the ‘good old cause’

Following the fall of the protectorate, Thomson returned to Parliament with the Rump on 7 May. Snellinge was of course long dead, but Cornelius Cooke was at the head of a deputation from Southwark who presented to the Commons on 10 May a petition declaring the support of the ‘well-affected inhabitants’ for the Rump and ‘the good old cause’. In familiar fashion, it sought action on prisoners and the militia. CJ vii. 648a; The Humble Petition and Advice of Divers Well-Affected (E.980.1). A committee was thereupon set up to consider the former, but the Speaker could assure the petitioners with truth that there was ‘already some provision’ for the latter, Thomson and others having been instructed the previous day to prepare a bill for all the militias of the metropolis. CJ vii. 647a, 648a. A draft for Southwark was presented on the 25th, but, although Thomson was evidently active in this area (as well as having a heavy workload in naval and financial matters) it appears to have taken another local petition and the prospect of royalist insurrection in the summer to bring the issue to fruition (14 and 27 July). CJ vii. 664b, 671a, 732b, 735a. The 53 commissioners named made for an unwieldy and potentially fractious body, including as it did men of diverse opinions including Lieutenant-general Charles Fleetwood*, Sir Henry Vane II*, Thomas Scot I*, Thomson, Rich, Cook, Hyland, Baines and De Lannoy. A. and O.

When on 13 October dissident army commanders effected the ‘interruption’ of Parliament, ‘the saints of Southwark’ were mobilized to resist. In contrast to 1647, they proved ineffectual at this juncture, possibly because of desertions. Clarke Pprs. iv. 61; I. B. A New Map of England (1659), 6 (E.1001.3). However, in time Fleetwood resisted the blandishments of his colleagues, Scot and Thomson were in communication with General George Monck* in Scotland, and the conjunction of republicans, radicals and pragmatists in Southwark brought their forces under control to the benefit of the civilian parliamentarian leadership. Thomson’s regiment ‘drew together again’ to contribute to the liberation of Parliament when City forces would not, and at the beginning of December there were Southwark companies available to despatch to mop up resistance at Portsmouth. Sir A Heselrige, A Declaration (1659, E.1005.6); G. Monck, A Declaration touching the King of Scots (1659), 6. Thomson went on to work hard for a smooth return of monarchical rule, but the tradition of contested elections and radical politics persisted in Southwark into the later seventeenth century, evident not least in the many nonconformists who assembled to support his own candidature in 1661. HP Commons 1640-1660.