East Looe

East Looe was the larger and more important of the two boroughs at the mouth of the River Looe on the south coast of Cornwall. According to early seventeenth century accounts, East Looe was more prosperous than neighbouring West Looe, and ‘their profit chiefly accrueth from their weekly markets, and industrious fishing, with boats of a middle size able to brook, but not cross the seas’, with the most lucrative trade being in ‘this silly small fish’, the pilchard. Carew, Survey, 128; Corporation Chronicles… of East and West Looe ed. A.L. Browne (Plymouth, 1904), 11. The town could also boast some ‘bigger shipping’, and as its anchorage was potentially of importance to the navy, ‘the town towards the sea is fenced with a garreted wall, against any sudden attempt of the enemy’. Carew, Survey, 128. By the mid-seventeenth century the borough had a population of around 500, and, unlike its poorer neighbour, a number of substantial houses of five or more hearths. These were occupied by the leading families such as the Popes, Ambroses, Spoores, Coodes, Hickeses and Vines, most of them engaged in commerce, although some described themselves as ‘gentlemen’. Cornw. Hearth Tax, 97-8. As a parliamentary borough it was an Elizabethan creation, with a charter restricting the franchise to the mayor, recorder, steward and eight burgesses. Coate, Cornw. 17-18. In the 1620s the patronage was shared between prominent local families, especially the Mohuns, and the duchy of Cornwall, which owned the manor and some property in the town. Coate, Cornw. 10.

By 1640 the influence of the traditional patrons had declined: it was significant that the duchy candidate put forward in February 1640 was rejected out of hand, and no nomination was made in the following October. DCO, ‘Letters and warrants, 1639-53’, ff. 44v, 66-7. Instead the Buller family, seated at Shillingham near Saltash but with substantial landed interests in the vicinity of East and West Looe, had become a force to be reckoned with. This can be seen in a letter by a prominent burgess, Philip Hickes, to Francis Buller I*, written during the first half of March, in which he promised to ‘defer our election of burgesses until Wednesday next [i.e. 18 Mar.] at your request’ and added that ‘our desire is that you will be present at that time without any more delay; for we are very loath to do any thing therein without your presence’. In response, Buller (who was no doubt working on behalf of his father, Sir Richard Buller*) admitted that he had already been elected for Saltash, but nominated two alternative candidates: ‘Mr Coode and Mr Denell’. Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/23/73/10. The identity of the latter is uncertain, but William Coode*, a local landowner with links to the Bullers, was duly returned by the burgesses as their MP for the Short Parliament. The other MP was William Scawen, who was also a Cornish landowner, although his return may have been supported by Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland.

East Looe cemented its connections with the Bullers in the next few months. On 29 June 1640 Francis I was chosen as the new recorder of the corporation. Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/21/16. In October 1640, when the Long Parliament elections were held, Francis Buller was again given a free hand. On 15 October the new mayor, Philip Hickes, requested Buller’s attendance at a meeting the next day ‘because we intend not to do anything in our election of burgesses but in your presence; we have not certainly determined whom to choose: but for your part, you shall have no case to doubt of our entire affections and true respects towards you’. Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/23/73/9. As we have seen, Hickes was probably a client of the Bullers, and his eagerness to bow before the Buller interest was not shared by all at East Looe. Another burgess, John Pope, told Francis Buller on 17 October that his failure to attend the meeting was threatening his right to nominate the candidates.

You are informed that there is one that offereth a sum of money for one of our burgess-ships, but we do not intend that way, but for our own safeties and our children’s good after us, I could have wished you had been with us yesterday, that we might have done our business because of so many suitors and strong requests. I conferred with Mr Mayor this morning and it is so that he refers himself to the last relation which he sent you, and desires your presence on Monday next if possible you may be spared, and if not he will stay till Wednesday next and no longer because of the time. Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/24/4/20.

Pope’s apparent irritation with the constant delays, and the general impatience of the burgesses faced with what could be interpreted as Buller’s neglect, did not prevent them from returning him as their MP, alongside a court candidate, Thomas Lower. C219/43, unfol. This may indicate the influence exercised by Hickes as mayor. He certainly continued to be on good terms with Francis Buller, writing to him in December 1640 with a shopping list of things that the corporation wished to have done in Parliament, including the proper consideration of ‘the nakedness of our town, in the want of ordnance for defence if danger should come’. Antony House, Carew-Pole BO/24/2, no. 57.

East Looe seems to have played very little part in the civil wars. Two men from the town – Hugh Chandler and Edward Trout – were later condemned for being active royalists in 1643-4, but it seems that few in the borough followed their example. CCAM 1299. Thomas Lower was disabled from sitting as an MP at Westminster in the new year of 1644, and at some point after mid-January 1647, when a writ was issued for a new election, the seat was taken by Francis Buller’s ally, John Moyle II*. CJ v. 21a; C231/6, p. 73. There is no record of Moyle’s presence in the Commons before early February 1648. Infra, ‘John Moyle II’. Pride’s purge of the Commons in December 1648 removed Buller but left Moyle in place, and during the commonwealth the Buller interest was further dented by the passing of the duchy’s local rights into the hands of new men. In February 1651, for example, the fee farm rents of the borough were granted to a triumvirate headed by Hunt Greenwood*, the Liskeard-based ally of the Colonel Robert Bennett*. E315/140, f. 76v. The influence of men like Greenwood and Bennett – who were both Baptists – may have encouraged the rise of a radical clique within East Looe during the early 1650s. The other influence was Stephen Midhope, vicar of St Martin’s, who resigned his living to become the Baptist minister in East Looe before his death in 1653. T. Bond, Topog. and Hist. Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West Looe (1823), 23.

The rise of the Baptists in East Looe can be charted through the mayoral appointments. In or before 1649 Walter Vine became mayor, and he was followed in 1652 by Thomas Dobbins, in 1656 by Peter Coode and in 1657 by John Spoore. Cornw. RO, X/155/22, 25, 345; DC/LOO/125/1/1-2; DC/LOO/125/3. All of these can be identified as Baptists from a later list of the ‘brethren at Looe’, and their close connection with Colonel Bennett can be seen from his correspondence, and from the fact that he was chosen to attend the Baptist meeting at Wells as their representative in the spring of 1656. FSL, X.d.438 (135, 172, 175-6). The influence of this clique perhaps accounts for the vigour of the town’s government during the 1650s. There were celebrations at ‘Mr Vine’s house’ in 1651 on ‘the rejoicing day for the reducing of Scilly’; in 1653 the chapel and town hall were repaired; in 1654 the quay was rebuilt and then and in later years the cannons guarding the town were refurbished; £3 10s was paid for new serjeants’ cloaks in 1655; in 1655-6 the town stocks were repaired, and in 1656-7 the chapel was renovated for a second time. Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/125/1/1-2; DC/LOO/125/4/1; DC/LOO/125/5; X/155/346-8. There was also a surprising readiness to assist, and even entertain, the officers who regularly pressed men from the town for the navy and the army during the 1650s. Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/125/4/1; DC/LOO/125/5.

The reorganisation of the Cornish boroughs under the Instrument of Government of December 1653, which resulted in the amalgamation of East and West Looe to form one borough returning a single MP, brought a serious challenge to the Baptists and their patrons. A. and O. Despite their proximity, the differences between the two towns had increased during the previous decade. As John Taylor had observed archly a few years before, they had ‘two mayors, two churches, two governors and more than two religions’. J. Taylor, John Taylor’s Wanderings to see the Wonders of the West (1649), 18 (E573.12). West Looe was certainly the more conservative of the two, and its own burgesses, jealous of their more prominent neighbour across the river, were riled by obvious attempts to encroach on their rights, such as the appointment by the spring of 1654 of the prominent East Looe burgess, Thomas Clements, as their steward. Cornw. RO. B/WLO/63/1, f. 52. The West Looe men seem to have received support from local landowners, including the Bullers, who were resentful of the influence of Bennett and his friends, and eager to re-assert their authority over both towns. In July 1654, the West Looe burgesses launched a pre-emptive strike. As the indenture suggests, the election held on 3 July before the sheriff, by virtue of a ‘warrant’ issued to both mayors, was decidedly irregular. Eight of the ten signatories were burgesses of West Looe, and the remaining two (John Hoskin and William Ambrose) were non-Baptists from East Looe; and the election was conducted ‘with the consent of the number of forty and two free burgesses of the said inhabitants’ of the two towns. The Member returned was a moderate local gentleman, Anthony Rous. C219/44, unfol.

The status of these ‘two and forty’ inhabitants, and the lack of involvement of more than a couple of the East Looe burgesses (and none of the officials from the town) presumably led to the repeat election held on 12 July. This time the tables were turned. Of the 12 burgesses named in the indenture, not one appears to be from West Looe, and at least six were known East Looe Baptists. C219/44, unfol.; FSL, X.d.438 (135). The mayor’s accounts for East Looe provide further details of events on 12 July: on the same day, money was paid out for the corporation’s ‘charges’ at Bodmin, including 1s 6d for post of a letter sent there by Hunt Greenwood, and a further 10s to him ‘for drawing the indentures for the burgess’. Cornw. RO, DC/LOO/125/4/1. The involvement of Greenwood points to the influence of Robert Bennett behind the scenes, and this is confirmed by the result – the return of the well-connected soldier, John Blackmore, as MP for East and West Looe. As a consequence, the election of Anthony Rous (who was also elected for Cornwall) was dropped. A letter from John Buller* to his brother Francis Buller II*, dated 10 August, suggests that the supporters of Rous were considering challenging the result: ‘for Looe I leave that altogether to your discretion, prudence and will, as I give myself altogether thereto, to be acted, etc. I thought it might do well if you had met Ben[nett] at Looe to receive his answer on the place’. Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/5. But, perhaps because of Bennett’s strength and Rous’s accommodation elsewhere, the matter was not pursued.

The next election, in 1656, was equally fraught. John Buller warned his father that ‘letters are intercepted before elections’, adding wearily, ‘it is usual’. Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/13. Anthony Buller* was also concerned that ‘our letters are looked [at] in Looe’, in a comment that suggests that the East Looe burgesses and their allies were intent on preventing a repeat of the ambush that had occurred in July 1654. Antony House, Carew-Pole BC/26/14/14. In this they were to be singularly unsuccessful. A letter dated 9 August 1656 related the ‘work of election’ on 25 July, when

Colonel Bennett and his whole company met that day, and thought to have had one of their own, but their endeavour was to little purpose; for all almost of both towns were before resolved for Mr [John] Buller of the Middle Temple, who was in the morning chosen by them. The Publick Intelligencer no. 44 (4-11 Aug. 1656), 754 (E.497.4).

In fact the official return was delayed by over a week, perhaps to coincide with the county election at Bodmin (and this is in itself interesting, as it suggests that all the Cornish indentures were written at one meeting), and on 12 August Major-general John Disbrowe* professed that he was content with Buller’s return for the seat. TSP v. 302. This seems to suggest that the result was mutually acceptable, but the dominance of the West Looe corporation over this election is suspicious. Money ‘spent when the indentures were made’ in the mayor’s accounts for West Looe on 18 August, and the indenture itself, dated 20 August, included only eight named electors, two of whom (William Ambrose and John Hoskin) were from East Looe, while the remainder were the mayor and burgesses from West Looe. Cornw. RO, B/WLO/33; C219/45, unfol. The inclusion of Ambrose and Hoskin, who had also sided with the West Looe men in 1654, is significant, as it indicates that the corporation at East Looe was split on similar lines to those that had caused the disputed election in 1654. Finally, the return of Buller, instead of one of Bennett’s people, seems to confirm that the 1656 election was a victory against the Baptist interest in East Looe.

In 1659 the franchise returned to its traditional form, with East Looe again returning two Members to Westminster on its own account. The indenture, signed on 17 January, named 14 individuals, including the mayor William Pope, and the moderate burgesses William Ambrose and John Hoskin, alongside two Baptists, Walter Vine and Peter Coode, and two members of the Hickes family (closely associated with the Bullers). C219/46, unfol. John Buller was again returned, with another local gentleman with interests in the borough, John Kendall, and on 24 February Buller, who had been elected for Saltash as well, chose to sit for East Looe. CJ vii. 607a. After the disputes and divisions of the mid-1650s, the 1659 election suggests that East Looe was again united, although the absence of many Baptists might point to a boycott rather than a winning of hearts and minds within the corporation. The Baptists had certainly not disappeared – in February 1660 ten of them signed a testimonial on behalf of Robert Bennett, who was now facing charges related to his involvement in the commonwealth regime in the previous year – but they were no longer a force within the corporation. FSL, X.d.438 (135). Indeed, from 1658-9 East Looe seems to have reverted to something approaching normality. At the Restoration the mayor spent 17s ‘when the king was proclaimed here’, and the mayors in the 1660s included Popes and Ambroses, members of families who had served in the corporation before the civil war. Cornw. RO, X/155/30; DC/LOO/125, 8-10.