London

With a population of perhaps 375,000 (including the suburbs), the City of London was by far the largest urban area in early modern England. It was also the country’s most important trading centre, being home to as many as 1,000 merchants, who dominated the domestic and overseas export markets, and the source of immense amounts of wealth and, as result, loans for the crown. G.S. De Krey, London and the Restoration, 1659-1683 (Cambridge, 2005), 6. Municipal government in London was divided into three distinct bodies under the jurisdiction of the lord mayor: the court of aldermen, the court of common council and common hall. The lord mayor was the executive officer, who commanded the City trained bands and presided as judge over his own court. He was elected each Michaelmas by the aldermen assembled in common hall, who put forward two names from which the court of aldermen made the final choice. The court of aldermen, which acted as a council for the lord mayor, was made up of 26 members – one for each of the City’s wards – who served for life. In its elections the freemen of the ward would nominate four candidates, of which the court of aldermen chose one. The common council, which had the right to approve major decision made by the mayor and aldermen, consisted of around 230 members elected by the wards. It was convened by the order of the mayor. In addition, there were other City officials such as the two sheriffs, elected in June, who were in charge of the execution of justice in the City; and the recorder, the City’s chief legal officer. Pearl, London, 49-59; J.E. Farnell, ‘The Politics of the City of London, 1649-57’ (Chicago Univ. PhD thesis, 1963), 6-11.

Parliamentary elections were in the hands not of the freemen as a whole but of the liverymen of the City companies who constituted the membership of common hall. There were probably 4,000 liverymen at the start of the Long Parliament, and later in the century this number increased to 5-6,000. Pearl, London, 50-3, 65-6; K. Lindley, Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London (Aldershot, 1997), 169; De Krey, London and the Restoration, 8. Unlike the courts of aldermen and common council, common hall had no deliberative or legislative function, and its members were not elected. The liverymen of the City Companies were members of common hall as of right, and the promotion of a freeman to the livery was in the hands of his Company. The exact nature of the parliamentary elections in this period is difficult to reconstruct as there are few contemporary accounts, and these are often inadequate or confused. The 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) took a jaundiced view, complaining that ‘the meanest person’ could attend the common hall. Clarendon, Hist. ii. 435. The Venetian residents found the electoral process baffling. Describing the contest in London in 1656, Francesco Giavarina wrote

The manner in which these elections take place is remarkable. All those who have a vote for this election meet together and each man calls aloud the name of the person whom he wishes to be elected. In such a large gathering of people it is impossible to know who has the majority of votes, and so the nominees are carried shoulder high out of the meeting followed by all who gave them their votes. These being counted they find out who has the majority and is elected. CSP Ven. 1655-6, p. 256.

Nor is it possible to state to size of the electorate with any accuracy. Modern estimates have put the number of voting liverymen at around 4,000 in 1640, but it unlikely that this figure remained constant throughout the period. Hirst, Representative of the People?, 94. The connection between the City and its MPs was a close one, with Members receiving allowances which varied according to the status of the Member: in November 1641 these were set at £6 13s 4d. for robes, 12d a day for boat hire, while the aldermen received 4s daily for food and the mere burgesses 2s. CLRO, Rep. 55, f. 213v.

The election of March 1640

The election to the Short Parliament on 2 March 1640 was held amid a general atmosphere of hostility to the court, and this was reflected in the Members returned who were, according to the Venetian resident

not only puritans, but those who in the past have shown most boldness in opposing the king’s decrees and excluding with definite and seditious declarations the Catholics and all who served his Majesty last year against the Scots and the affair of York. CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 25.

It would be misleading to claim, however, that hostility to the court, as displayed in the March election, can be equated with outright radicalism. The court of aldermen which dominated the City government under the lord mayor, was strongly loyal to the crown; and the ‘old’ merchant elite, which dominated such trading bodies as the East India Company and, to a lesser extent, the Levant Company and the Merchant Adventurers, also supported the king. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 317, 321. There was, however, considerable discontentment in the lesser organs of government – the common council and the common hall – and the wider merchant community resented the arbitrary taxation imposed during the 1620s and 1630s. The drafting of a petition of grievances by the common council, widespread opposition to the trained bands marching north against the Scots and the refusal of the City to provide a £100,000 loan to the king are indicative of the alienation felt by many citizens during the first bishops’ war. Pearl, London, 94-5, 97. The four men returned in the March 1640 elections attracted a wide base of support in the City. Matthew Cradock, Isaac Penington, Sir Thomas Soame and Samuel Vassall, had recent histories of anti-court activity, in particular Vassall who had faced imprisonment in 1628 for his refusal to pay the imposition on currants and again in 1639 for opposing Ship Money. Penington had a reputation as a godly figure whose early support for Independent ministers and lecturers brought him into conflict with Archbishop William Laud. Matthew Cradock, whose plan to transfer the government of the Massachusetts Bay Company to New England made him the subject of a writ of quo warranto, was no friend of the crown. Soame was the least outwardly radical of the four, but his popularity in the City had been demonstrated in 1639 on his election as president of the Honourable Artillery Company. He was hostile to arbitrary taxation and had refused to contribute to the Forced Loan in 1626; and although he accepted the duties of Ship-Money sheriff in 1639, he refused to take any action against defaulters. All four MPs were merchants with vested interests in the colonial trade to north America, a grouping which represented the main force of opposition to the City establishment during the first half of the seventeenth century. R. Brenner, ‘Civil War Politics of London's Merchant Community`, P and P lviii. 78. Among the rejected candidates were the City’s recorder Sir Thomas Gardiner* who instead found his way into Parliament via the Cornish borough of Callington. The refusal to elect the recorder was very unusual – the most recent case being the bad-tempered election in 1628 – and was another sign of the City’s opposition to the crown. J. K. Gruenfelder, Influence in early Stuart Elections, 1604-1640 (Columbus, 1981), 198.

The October 1640 election and the Long Parliament

The October 1640 election returned as MPs ‘the very same they chose for the last Parliament’. Add. 11045, f. 128v. Their reputation as opponents of the crown, and their popularity, had grown since the spring. During the early summer, three of them, Penington, Soame and Vassall, had refused to draw up lists of wealthy citizens in their wards who would be forced to lend money to the king. Pearl, London, 100. Soame had been imprisoned for his recalcitrance, and Vassall came close to the same fate for his part in the citizens’ petition to the king demanding the recall of Parliament. CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 151, 491; Pearl, London, 184, 193. They were joined in the Commons by Londoners sitting for other seats, such as John Glynne* (Westminster) and John Rolle* (Truro). High on the list of the citizens’ grievances in the autumn of 1640 were the ill effects of impositions, monopolies and Ship Money on trade, together with innovations in religion. Relations with the king, however, were barely improved with the calling of the new Parliament, as William Hawkins explained in a letter to the 2nd earl of Leicester

The not coming of the writs to London, Middlesex and Westminster till yesterday [14 Oct.], did breed some doubts in many, and it is thought that the lending citizens have parted with their money more willingly since than before. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley vi. 334-5.

Significantly, the parliamentary election of October followed a particularly fiercely contested mayoral election in which the court candidate, Sir William Acton (who, as senior alderman would have expected to be elected), was passed over in favour of known opponents of the crown, Soame and Sir John Gayer, who were nominated and Soame duly chosen as the new mayor. The result was immediately rejected by the privy council on ground of procedural irregularities, and a fresh election was demanded. The second contest was held just before the parliamentary election, and was stage-managed by the sheriff to ensure the return of a compromise candidate, Edmund Wright, despite protests that Soame had been rightfully elected. This has been seen as a struggle between City institutions as much as political factions, with common hall asserting its rights against the mayor and aldermen. A further stage in this institutional conflict came immediately after the parliamentary election, when a citizens’ petition, complaining of innovations in religion and threats to the security of London, was delivered up to the new MPs to be read in Parliament. There was uncertainty how to deal with the petition as it had not been forwarded to common council and therefore did not have the official backing of the City government. Pearl, London, 110-2. A newsletter to Viscount Scudamore recounted how,

some of the people cried out to have this petition read out, but the major part by far cried down that motion saying they would not have their grievances published but in Parliament, so to avoid censure of libelling. Much ado there was before this could be overruled, but the sheriff putting it to the question in the hall it was concluded it should not be read but in Parliament, many of them would appear to prove all true set down in that petition: certain it is that very many of those people gave their voices against the reading of that petition that know nothing what was in it. Add. 11045, f. 128v.

Penington eventually presented the petition to the Commons on 9 November, and although it seems not to have been taken into further consideration, this marked the beginning of a growing tendency of the City’s MPs to work with the common councillors while by-passing the lord mayor and court of aldermen. D’Ewes (N), 16.

The erosion of the power of the City’s elite was increased by the eagerness of the London MPs to embrace the agenda of John Pym* and his allies in the Commons. In the early weeks of the session they had championed the cases of prominent victims of Archbishop Laud, including William Prynne* and Henry Burton, who were paraded through the City on 28 November. Pearl, London, 211. Penington pushed for radical religious reform by presenting a ‘root and branch’ petition to the Commons on 11 December 1640. This was going too fast for most MPs and the House delayed its discussion of the petition, with orders that Penington and Soame seal up the list of names until further notice. D’Ewes (N), 141-2; Pearl, London, 212. The importance of London as a financial centre, and in particular its role in raising a loan of £200,000 to pay off the Scots after the bishops’ wars, increased the political leverage enjoyed by its MPs. CLRO, Jor. 39, f. 137. As Clarendon commented: ‘if anything they proposed in the House was crossed, presently the City would lend no more money because of this or that obstruction’. Clarendon, Hist. i. 274. The City’s representatives played a direct part in financial affairs, and they were soon able to capitalise on the financial embarrassment of Charles I. On 18 December 1640 Penington and Soame were appointed treasurers for the London loan, and they were able to put increasing financial pressure on the government during the spring, culminating in April 1641 with a campaign to ensure that no loan money was paid until the execution of the 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†). D’Ewes (N), 189, 420-1, 433; Pearl, London, 216. By this time the alliance between the City and the opponents of the crown in Parliament was well-established. Their close cooperation can be seen in events surrounding the Protestation of 3 May, which received the immediate support of the City, with Cradock and Vassall presenting a petition in its support the very next day. Pearl, London, 218. The close connection between the London MPs and common hall is suggested by the by-election which followed Matthew Cradock’s death on 27 May 1641. The writ for a new election was issued the next day and the contest, held only four days later, saw the election of John Venn, who had acted as the citizens’ spokesman on the presentation of their petition against Strafford earlier in the month, highlighting the continued hostility of the electorate to the court. CJ ii. 160b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 279. Opposition to the crown and its policies was not universal, however. In September the campaign in London against altar rails and other ‘superstitious’ church fittings led to violent confrontations, not least at St Giles, Cripplegate. Pearl, London, 220.

It was also clear that the City elite was not prepared to countenance the reform agenda pushed by Penington and his allies. The depth of the division was highlighted in the following November, when plans by the lord mayor and aldermen to provide lavish entertainment for the king on his return from Scotland were publicly opposed by Venn as a ‘thing displeasing to Parliament’. CLRO, City Cash 1/4, ff. 146v-148; Jor. 39, ff. 245v, 246v, 252v; D’Ewes (C), 216. Venn’s objections did not prevent the celebrations from going ahead, however, and it was also clear that leading merchants were determined to support the king, with the East India Company electing as its governor the pro-royalist, Sir Henry Garway, in the same month. R. Ashton, ‘Insurgency, Counter-insurgency and Inaction: three phases in the role of the City in the Great Rebellion’, in London and the Civil War ed. S. Porter (Basingstoke, 1996), 50-1; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 376; Pearl, London, 115, 126-7, 221. In the weeks that followed, the opponents of the king resorted to appeals to the wider population, whipping up hatred against the bishops in the Lords and the appointment of a new lieutenant of the Tower, Colonel Thomas Lunsford. Pearl, London, 130-1, 222-3. In December Venn was implicated in rioting by apprentices and it was no secret that Penington encouraged petitioning and lobbying. Pearl, London, 221-4 In response the lord mayor faithfully conveyed the king’s concerns to the common council throughout December and issued orders to put down such ‘tumults’. CLRO, Jor. 39, ff. 253v, 262-4. The attempt by the king to arrest the Five Members in January 1642 was preceded by warnings from the City to the Commons, delivered to the House by Soame, Vassall and Penington, that their security was at risk. CJ iii. 367b. Soon afterwards the London MPs took the opportunity to challenge the power of the lord mayor with the creation of a new committee of safety for the City, dominated by common councillors opposed to the king, including Randall Mainwaring, John Fowke, Stephen Estwicke and Owen Rowe. Pearl, London, 138-9. This was followed by the raising of the trained bands against the mayor’s wishes and the vote of the Commons to give the common council the right to order future musters. Pearl, London, 146-7; L.C. Nagel, ‘The Militia of London, 1641-9’ (London Univ. PhD thesis, 1982), 37-40. On Penington’s motion on 12 January, the Commons passed a resolution requiring the lord mayor to call the common council as the committee of safety directed. PJ i. 44. In the meantime other aggressive activities, such as a review of the trained bands by Philip Skippon*, had triggered Charles I’s withdrawal from the capital. Nagel, ‘Militia‘, 41. The common council was given the right to nominate members of the committee of safety by a vote of 22 January and a subsequent ordinance, and on 11 February the members of the new committee were recommended as suitable militia commissioners for the City. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 44, 47; Pearl, London, 227-8. Moves to force the lord mayor to call the common council during the spring emphasised that power was increasingly being transferred away from the traditional elite. Ashton, ‘Insurgency, Counter-insurgency and Inaction’, 52. A protest against the power of the committee of safety, presented to the Lords by the lord mayor and 13 aldermen to the Lords in February, only served to provoke the Commons to start impeachment proceedings against the ringleaders, Sir George Benion and Sir Thomas Gardiner. In March the Commons adjudicated a constitutional dispute between the court of aldermen and the common council, deciding in favour of the latter. Pearl, London, 149-51, 153-4. By this stage the common council had become entwined with, and to an extent dependent on, the dominant faction at Westminster. In March, when the militia bill was debated, the common council was persuaded to withdraw their own objections to it, based on their right to ‘the ordering of their own arms’. CLRO, Jor. 40, ff. 25-6. Parliament also drew considerable support from citizenry, including the ‘interloping’ merchants who had long snapped at the heels of the old merchant Companies. In April the adventure scheme to raise money for the reconquest of Ireland received enthusiastic support from London and its MPs (notably Vassall) while the ‘sea adventure’ in the summer was dominated by the new merchants. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 403-4.

The triumph of the City radicals reached its height in July 1642 when the royalist lord mayor, Sir Richard Gurney, was deposed on the orders of the common council, and Penington appointed as his temporary replacement. CLRO, Jor. 39, f. 329; CJ ii. 605a; PJ iii. 200. The royalists denounced these proceedings, complaining that Penington’s election had been highly irregular, ‘by the voice and clamour of the common people, against the customs and rules of election’. Clarendon, Hist. ii. 246. At the end of August the City considered providing weapons for the parliamentary forces and in early September the common council ordered the raising of further regiments in the City itself, receiving the thanks of both Houses ‘for the City’s forwardness and affections’. CLRO, Jor. 39, f. 366; Jor. 40, ff. 36-7. Penington was formally re-elected as lord mayor at the end of September, and soon established a close working relationship with the common council and the militia committee, leaving the court of aldermen in the cold. Pearl, London, 239. The militia committee was of particular importance, as it was staffed by aldermen heavily involved in the financing of Parliament and its army, including Sir John Wollaston, Thomas Andrews, Fowke, Estwicke, William Gibbs* and Thomas Atkin*. Pearl, London, 240. As the civil war approached, Penington organised troops to defend the capital and its suburbs and when the king’s army marched into the western suburbs in November, he played an important role in persuading the militia committee to allow the trained bands to march to Turnham Green. CLRO, Jor. 39, f. 366; Jor. 40, ff. 40v, 41; Nagel, ‘Militia’, 72, Pearl, London, 251-2. Thereafter the influence of the City in Parliament also increased with the creation of two key financial bodies: the commission for the weekly assessment in November 1642 and the new customs commission in January 1643 – the latter well stocked with colonial interlopers such as Maurice Thomson and Francis Allein*. CCAM 1-12; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 432. Penington and his allies also opposed peace talks with the king in the winter of 1642-3, despite popular demonstrations in favour of a settlement. Declaration and Proposals of the Lord Mayor (1642, E.83.18); I. Gentles, ‘Parliamentary Politics and the Politics of the Street: the London Peace Campaigns of 1642-3’, PH xxvi. 141-5; Lindley, Popular Politics, 338-41. It was small wonder that Charles I’s list of traitors, issued as part of the Oxford peace negotiations, should include such prominent Londoners as Penington, Venn, Richard Browne II*, Robert Tichborne* and Edmund Harvey I*. Clarendon, Hist. ii. 433; LJ v, 550b.

Faction, 1643-8

The hegemony of Lord Mayor Penington and his radical allies continued for much of 1643 and 1644. During the spring of 1643 the ‘lines of communication’ – eleven miles of earthworks and fortifications – were constructed around London and its suburbs, and the radicals in the City pressed for a new sub-committee at Salters’ Hall to raise auxiliary regiments needed to man the new defences. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 77-80; Pearl, London, 262-3; Lindley, Popular Politics, 311. In May revelations about a royalist plot, led by Edmund Waller* and supported by prominent Londoners such as Benion and the wealthy merchants Sir Paul Pindar and Sir Nicholas Crisp*, further strengthened Penington’s position in the City by allowing him to force the removal of suspected royalists from the aldermanic bench. Lindley, Popular Politics, 348-50; Pearl, London, 265-6. There was a great deal of support for the attempt by Sir William Waller* to secure an independent command based on the London regiments during the summer. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 116. This was not only a response to royalist victories in the south west but also an attack on the position of the 3rd earl of Essex as lord general. Vassall, in a speech in favour of Waller in July, openly accused the earl of being reluctant to fight, and a London petition of 20,000 called for the formation of a new army, led by Waller, in the same month. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 456-7. This move would ultimately fail, as Waller was eventually made subordinate to Essex and the militia committee continued to have the whip hand over the trained bands; but as a consolation prize Penington was made lieutenant of the Tower of London on 23 July. LJ vi. 154b, 159a; Pearl, London, 271. Essex still had powerful supporters in the City, including the recorder of London, John Glynne. Glynne presented to the Commons the militia committee’s insistence that they would ‘not trench upon any forces that are raised for the lord general’, and the London regiments went on to serve with the lord general at Gloucester and the first battle of Newbury. Add. 18778, f. 8; CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 73v. In the meantime, Penington was forced to fight a rear-guard action against those MPs who now called for peace talks with the king, and in August he pressurised the common council into drawing up resolutions against the plan which he then presented to Parliament at the head of a crowd of angry citizens. Lindley, Popular Politics, 317-8; Harl. 165, ff. 145v, 147v; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 139.

The events of August 1643 marked the high point of Penington’s influence in the City. From then on the ability of the radicals to control affairs was increasingly compromised by a variety of factors. Their success in over-aweing Parliament in August had come at a price, as ordinary Londoners protested in favour of peace and their wives led a women’s march which ended in bloodshed. Lindley, Popular Politics, 351-2; Gentles, ‘Parliamentary Politics and the Politics of the Street’, 154-6. The heavy burden of taxation – both direct and indirect – and the dislocation of domestic and foreign trade had plunged London into economic depression by the end of 1643. B. Coates, The Impact of the English Civil war on the Economy of London, 1642-50 (Aldershot, 2004), 219-20, 225. In the same period the proliferation of religious sects within the capital, championed by Penington and his allies, was beginning to provoke a reaction by supporters of a more orderly hierarchy on Presbyterian lines. M. Tolmie, Triumph of the Saints (Cambridge, 1977), 94-5. These religious conservatives were encouraged by the election of Wollaston as lord mayor in September 1643 and by the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots in the same month. The radicals made further losses during 1644. In January it was confirmed that the sub-committee at Salters’ Hall would be subordinate to the militia committee. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 164. By the summer Glynne and ‘his party’ were sufficiently confident to attempt to engineer the removal of Penington as lieutenant of the Tower. Juxon Jnl. 57-8.

London was also affected by political upheavals in the parliamentarian camp. When the Independents broke with the Scots and set up the New Model army in the spring of 1645, many of the leaders of London sided with the Scots and their ‘Presbyterian’ allies, including the earl of Essex. Signs of this affiliation were apparent in the summer of 1645. In June, when the day of thanksgiving for the New Model’s victory at Naseby was celebrated in the City, the chosen preachers were Essex’s former chaplain, Cornelius Burges, and his Presbyterian colleague, Thomas Valentine. CLRO, Rep. 57, f. 75v. Factional divisions were exacerbated by religious disagreements, brought to a head by Parliament’s attempt to water down the Presbyterian system and to introduce an Erastian church. Lindley, Popular Politics, 276. In September 1645, instead of a firebrand, the moderate Thomas Adams* was elected as mayor, and shortly afterwards the common council petitioned against the delay in establishing a full Presbyterian system. Lindley, Popular Politics, 356-7. On 25 October the new ordinance for choosing elders, which gave increased power to lay ‘triers’, was discussed in the common council. It was vehemently opposed by the Presbyterian members, encouraged by ministers who ‘were not well pleased with it’; but after ‘a long debate’ the radical Independents, led by Tichborne, Rowland Wilson* and Samuel Moyer*, ‘held it for the negative’. Juxon Jnl. 89-90. In November the common council, ‘being stirred up and fomented by the ministers’ petitioned both Houses against toleration for sects outside the formal hierarchy, in a move that was ‘very ill resented’. Juxon Jnl. 95. The ability of the Independents to head off such moves was reduced by the common council elections in December, which saw the return of many Presbyterian sympathisers. Lindley, Popular Politics, 360-1. In January 1646 William Gibbs presented a petition against ‘private meetings’ and unauthorised preaching, and the next month there was further tension with Parliament when the letter from the Scots urging the City to settle Presbyterian forms was reported at Westminster. LJ viii. 105a; Juxon Jnl. 101-2. The common council blamed its messenger, the Independent Francis Allein, for ‘giving a false report’ while some attacked the Commons ‘as if they took too much upon them in questioning what they did in the common council’. Juxon Jnl. 103. The common council continued to oppose interference, in March demanding that the Presbyterian hierarchy would be independent from Parliament – a petition that was declared a breach of privilege by the Lords. PA, MP, 11 Mar. 1646, ff. 143-6. The Independent councilman, Thomas Juxon*, saw such moves as the work of a Presbyterian ‘engaged party’, spurred on by the London ministers

For in London ‘twas not the City nor the common council but a few engaged men there that are triers; for it happens many times when a thing is put to the vote in that court there will be 30 or 40 hands for the affirmative and not five for the negative, and the rest, who are the major part, are silent, as either not willing or not daring to appear; so a party carry on things there. Juxon Jnl. 106, 110.

Juxon’s estimation seems to have been accurate. Despite the assertion of the Scottish commissioner, Robert Baillie, that the City was ‘our last refuge’, full of ‘zealous and understanding people’, the rigid Presbyterians were never more than a minority on the common council, and when visited by a delegation from Parliament on 17 March, they backed down, agreeing to accept a compromised church settlement. Baillie ii. 337, 352-3; Lindley, Popular Politics, 364-6.

The end of the civil war and the flight of the king to the Scottish army at Newark in May 1646 led to a political crisis in London. The lord mayor had already been questioned on suspicion of having planned to bring the king to London to make peace. Juxon Jnl. 113. At the end of the same month the Presbyterians abandoned their petitioning and the common council prepared instead a City remonstrance against indiscipline in the church and especially the activities of the extreme sects. Juxon Jnl. 114; CLRO, Jor. 40, ff. 176, 178v, 181-2v. This was a controversial move, linked by some with Essex’s faction in Parliament (especially Sir Philip Stapilton*) and with City ministers such as Stephen Marshall, Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye. It was opposed in the common council by Wollaston, Fowke, Gibbs and Thomas Foot*, and when the vote was passed on 19 May, Tichborne ‘did solemnly and gravely make his protestation against every particular and the whole’, supported by 11 other aldermen. Juxon Jnl. 114-5, 119, 123. The remonstrance had caused a factional rift in London which mirrored the increasingly acrimonious political division in Parliament. Tensions had been further heightened by the recruiter elections over the previous year, which allowed prominent Londoners to secure seats outside the capital: the Presbyterian Richard Browne II was returned for Chipping Wycombe while the Independent Thomas Atkin was elected for Norwich. Other recruiters with strong London connections included Rowland Wilson (Calne), Edmund Harvey I (Wiltshire) and George Thomson (Southwark). Thomas Juxon saw conspiracy everywhere during the summer of 1646. A dinner party attended by ‘several lords, commoners, aldermen, citizens and others’ was seen as an occasion ‘wherein the design is mutually carried on’, while an order by the Lords to the lord mayor to take care of the City government and especially the militia was considered a plot to increase power at the expense of the common council. Juxon Jnl. 128. The death of the earl of Essex on 7 September was seen in factional terms, as an ‘unexpected blow’ which ‘made a deep resentment in the party’. Juxon Jnl. 135. The extent of division can be seen in the mayoral election on 1 October, when distrust between the main Presbyterian and Independent factions led to ‘the honest party being thus divided into three’ and the return of a crypto-royalist, Sir John Gayer. Juxon Jnl. 136-7. There followed a concerted campaign to rid the country of the New Model army, which was not only a financial burden on the City but also a political and military threat in alliance with the Independent party. Parliament’s reliance on the City to raise £200,000 to pay off the Scots again gave London influence over the political process. CLRO, Jor. 40, f. 191v. In December 1646 a new petition, against religious radicalism and calling for the disbandment of the army and the immediate return of the king, was approved by the common council thanks to the support of Adams, John Langham*, Samuel Avery*, Thomas Vyner and other Presbyterians. Juxon Jnl. 142. This was presented to the Commons by Alderman James Bunce on 19 December, and was followed by a concerted campaign in the common council elections to oust the remaining Independents. Lindley, Popular Politics, 371-2.

The dominance of the Presbyterian interest in the Commons from the spring of 1647 brought rewards for their friends in the common council, and in particular the right to nominate its own militia committee without interference, which was conceded by Parliament on 16 April after a ‘great dispute’ between Penington and his supporters and the Presbyterian interest led by the City’s recorder, John Glynne. CLRO, Jor. 40, ff. 207-10, 213, 215v; Nagel, ‘Militia’, 267; Add. 31116, p. 306. According to Juxon, this was directly connected with the loan of £200,000 to Parliament, with the ‘party’ in the common council having ‘prevailed that the money should not be furnished till the militia were settled’. Juxon Jnl. 153. The militia committee was subsequently purged of its Independent element, including Venn and Penington, and new Presbyterian members were appointed. In the following weeks the radical officers in the London regiments were also removed. CJ v. 166a; Nagel, ‘Militia’, 268. The seizure of the king by Cornet George Joyce at the beginning of June, the New Model’s advance to quarters nearer to London and the impeachment of the Eleven Members (including Glynne) led to a political reverse for the Presbyterians, and the Commons agreed to re-instate the old militia committee members in July. CJ v. 254b. Mass meetings in support of the Covenant and the king ensued, and the citizens signed an engagement that was condemned out of hand by the Commons (23 July). In response, the common council prepared a petition against the new militia committee which was taken to Westminster by a large crowd on 26 July. The rioting that followed, and the occupation of the Houses of Parliament by the mob, forced many MPs, including the Speaker, to flee. The London Members withdrew from the Commons but did not leave the capital, and Vassall at least seems to have had some sympathy with the Presbyterian cause. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 279-282; Ashton, ‘Insurgency, Counter-insurgency and Inaction‘, 54-6. There was, however, no stomach among the citizens for a direct confrontation with the New Model and calls for the trained bands to stand to were ignored. The New Model’s entry into the capital on 6 August not only brought the Presbyterian coup to an end but also led to yet another purge of the militia committee, with the Independents re-instated. CJ v. 290a. There followed a period of intense lobbying, as the London MPs were sent on repeated visits to the lord mayor and the common council in an attempt to force the City to lend money to pay the arrears owed to the New Model. CJ v. 290b, 298b, 301a, 307b, 311a. At the end of September Parliament impeached four leading aldermen and Lord Mayor Gayer, and instructed the court of aldermen to summon common hall to elect a new lord mayor. CJ v. 318b; LJ ix. 452a.

The political struggles from the early summer of 1646 until the high summer of 1647 had left the Independents in charge of London but with a very narrow support base. The East India Company, which had come close to collapse after the civil war, re-established itself with a second general voyage in the summer of 1647, raising the stock with assistance from their old enemies, the colonial interlopers such as Maurice Thomson, Thomas Andrews and Samuel Moyer. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 516-7. During 1648 there was increasing unrest. Royalist sentiment among the populace led to rioting in April and an investigation was mounted by Penington and Atkin. CJ v. 537a. In the same month there were concerns that the army intended to disarm the citizens, but further disturbances were prevented by the appointment of Skippon as commander of the militia (which placated the army) and the release of Gayer and the aldermen imprisoned since the previous summer. Ashton, ‘Insurgency, Counter-insurgency and Inaction’, 59-60. In a further concession, in May Parliament allowed the City to nominate its own militia committee, and this allowed some Presbyterians to regain their places, while more moderate officers also returned to the trained bands during the summer. Nagel, ‘Militia’, 298-9. The second civil war made control of the militia all the more important, and in the summer attempts by the common council to re-assert its position and reject Skippon’s role as commander, were vigorously opposed by Penington, Venn and Harvey I. C. Walker, Hist. of Independency (1648), 123 (E.463.19). One hostile newsbook accused ‘Skippon and the Independent rabble of the City’ of planning to use force against their opponents. Mercurius Elencticus (5-12 July 1648), 253-4 (E.452.12). The City broadly welcomed the attempt to broker a new treaty with the king after the second civil war, but this was also greeted with suspicion at Westminster. The London MPs again acted as intermediaries: in August Vassall and Venn were sent to the mayor to order the City not to answer a letter from the prince of Wales, and in the same month they returned in an attempt to prevent London issuing its own petition in favour of a treaty. CJ v. 660b, 665b, 666a. But it was already clear that the Presbyterians and crypto-royalists in Parliament as well as the City were on a collision course with the New Model army.

The commonwealth, 1649-53

The political crisis at the end of 1648 divided the London Members. Penington and Venn, whose relations with the New Model had always been good, now sided with the radical Independents, going on to support the regicide (although Penington did not sign the death warrant). By contrast, Vassall and Soame were secluded at Pride’s Purge on 6 December 1648, with Soame facing the added humiliation of imprisonment. Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1355. Immediately afterwards the army struck at the City government, on 10 December imprisoning one of its sheriffs, Richard Browne II*. Farnell, ‘Politics’, 35. The Rump Parliament also moved against the City Presbyterians. On 13 December Penington was given charge of an order to prevent opponents of the army from standing in the common council election; his report on 16 December allegedly told the Commons that ‘the temper of the City is very malignant’; and four days later the Rump duly passed an ordinance preventing the election of anyone who had supported the treaty with the king. CJ vi. 96a; MercuriusPragmaticus no. 75 (12-19 Dec. 1648), Sig. Ddd4v (E.476.35); Farnell, ‘Politics’, 97. After a lull, in April 1649 the Rump Parliament deposed the lord mayor (Abraham Reynardson) for refusing to proclaim the abolition of the monarchy and a few days later he and four other aldermen (Gayer, Adams, Langham and Bunce) were expelled from the court of aldermen. Farnell, ‘Politics’, 36. Thomas Soame was removed as an alderman in the early summer and the common council also secured the resignation of the recorder, John Glynne, and his replacement by the more politically acceptable figure of William Steele*. CSP Ven. 1647-52, p. 108; Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 42-3; CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 1v; Farnell, ‘Politics’, 143, 146-7. This series of measures put the City government into the hands of the radical Independents in the common council, but their position was weakened in June 1650 by the death of John Venn. No by-election was called to replace him, despite repeated petitions in the summer and autumn of 1651, begging Parliament to make provision ‘for this City’s choosing burgesses in the room of those that are wanting’. CLRO, Jor. 41x, ff. 52-3, 65, 66v-67. This left Penington as London’s sole elected representative in Parliament, supported by Londoners who sat for other constituencies, including Allein, Edmund Harvey I and Rowland Wilson. Their influence over the politics of the Rump can be seen in the Hale Commission for law reform appointed in December 1651 and also the more aggressive commercial and foreign policy which led to the act restricting trade with the Americas in 1650, the navigation act of 1651 and the first Dutch war of 1652. Such initiatives were supported by the colonial interlopers, notably Allein, Atkin, Edmund Harvey I, Wilson and George Thomson. Brenner, Merchants and Revolutionaries, 573-4, 578-9, 583-4, 604-5, 625, 630.

The purge of the City’s governors and the influence of Penington and his radical friends did not, however, lead to far-reaching reform of its political structure. In this, as in other areas needing attention, the Rump proved dilatory. Only one major attempt to transform the size and nature of common hall was made during 1651, culminating in an act of common council which took the franchise – in the elections for the lord mayor, sheriffs or MPs – out of the hands of the liverymen. Under the new scheme, passed by act of common council on 4 November 1651 and confirmed a week later, common hall was to be made up of representatives of the freemen of the City, known as deputies, who would join the aldermen and common councillors as electors. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 65v-7. Arguments for and against this proposal were debated before a special meeting of the common council on 14 December 1650 where lawyers for the 12 ‘great’ Companies defended the status quo, while John Price and the erstwhile Leveller, John Wildman*, put the case for reform. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 40. Price and Wildman’s argument was that since the freemen were obliged to pay local rates and taxes, they should have a say in the choice of the local magistrates who imposed those rates; and in terms of parliamentary representation, they pointed out that the commission to the City MPs was made out in the name of the whole commonalty, not just the liverymen. They also questioned the quality of the electorate under the livery system. ‘Truly’, said Wildman

if it please the honourable court but to consider who they are that are now electors... if I should speak of the education of most of the liverymen of forty Companies of the City, and compute their number and tell you upon what terms most are admitted to be of the liveries, that is for a small sum of money;... Will any man suppose that the education of all the handicraft men of the liveries render them so able and discreet that they are fit for government? London’s Liberties (1651), 32 (E.620.7).

While Wildman cited coopers and tallow chandlers among the inferior tradesmen who could dominate the electorate for the price of the livery, it is quite clear that it was the 12 great Companies, whose members dominated common hall, that had most to lose from electoral reform. The opposition to the new act at first caused a delay – it was passed only on 4 November 1651, almost a year after Price and Wildman had argued their case – and then an immovable obstruction in the form of a petition from the lord mayor, aldermen and the Companies in December 1651, which prompted Parliament to suspended the reforms before it could be put into practice at the elections to common council. CJ vii. 50a, 53a-b. All local and parliamentary elections remained firmly in the hands of the liverymen for the rest of the decade.

The Nominated Assembly of 1653 provided the first change in London’s representative since the by-election of May 1641. All of those chosen had risen to prominence in the municipality after the purge of 1648-9, and, with the exception of Praise-God Barbon, London’s seven representatives were relatively moderate in their political views. Four of them, Robert Tichborne, John Ireton, Samuel Moyer and John Langley were aldermen. Tichborne’s commitment to the army had been confirmed in 1647 when Sir Thomas Fairfax* appointed him lieutenant of the Tower while the allegiance to the army of John Ireton, brother of Henry, was never in doubt. Tichborne and Ireton worked closely together in the Nominated Assembly, and both went on to give their conditional support to the protectorate. Moyer and Langley were merchants and business associates who had gained considerable administrative experience under the Rump, as had John Stone. The reasons for Henry Barton’s selection for the Nominated Assembly are unclear, but he was also a moderate presence in the House. Praise-God Barbon, however, may have received support from both the army and the congregational churches, and his radicalism was notorious. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 126-8.

Although they had been chosen and not elected, the essential conservatism of the London MPs of the Nominated Assembly reflected a growing trend within the City. There had been occasional attempts during the Long Parliament to assert the authority of the lord mayor and the court of aldermen, but to no avail. In January 1645, for example, a debate between the mayor, aldermen and common council had produced a declaration by the latter that ‘the lord mayor and aldermen of this City have by ancient custom, usages and charters of this City a negative voice’ on all matters before the common council. CLRO, Rep. 57, f. 45v. In June 1650 Parliament had summoned the common council as the lord mayor (Thomas Foot) refused to do so, on the grounds that he had not been given sufficiently good reasons for them to meet. CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 26v. Foot’s refusal marked a challenge to the limits to the lord mayor’s powers set in 1642. A further attempt to restore the status quo came in December 1650, when the common council appointed a committee to draft a petition to Parliament in favour of reviving the ancient rights of the court of aldermen. CLRO, Rep. 61, f. 39v. Such moves proved ineffective, however, and it was only in 1653 that the hegemony of the common council was again questioned, this time by the incumbent lord mayor, John Fowke. In a speech in September he criticised the role of the common council, provoking a petition to Parliament from his opponents, including such prominent aldermen as Tichborne, Foot and Christopher Packe*, and in November he was charged with refusing to sign the warrants for collecting assessment. Farnell, ‘Politics’, 162, 308; P.J. Pinckney, ‘A Cromwellian Parliament: the Elections and Personnel of 1656’ (Vanderbilt Univ. PhD thesis, 1962), 268. On 14 June 1653 Fowke was absent from the common council, leaving Tichborne to take the chair, and this appears to have been a protest, for the next day Fowke issued a statement asserting the right of the mayor to call the common council and accusing Parliament of trying to destroy the ancient customs of the City. CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 83v-84. Once Fowke’s term of office expired, he was attacked by Tichborne and his friends, who in October petitioned against the former lord mayor for breaking his trust, slandering the aldermen and councillors, and opposing the will of Parliament. CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 89v-90. Further charges – corruption, extortion and the misuse of his seal – were made against Fowke a month later. CLRO, Jor. 41, f. 91.

Fowke’s attempt to re-establish the powers of the old elite was prescient, for the foundation of the protectorate in December brought widespread changes in London, as the new regime encouraged the lord mayor and aldermen to regain their lost authority in the City. The civic entry and reception for Oliver Cromwell* held in February 1654 set the tone. The lord protector was careful to distance himself from the army by arriving at the Temple Bar in civilian clothes and in a coach, and the orations celebrated the City as a model of classical civic virtue, with the court of aldermen likened to the Roman Senate. E. Holberton, Poetry and the Cromwellian Protectorate (Oxford, 2008), 39-41. The lord mayor, Thomas Vyner, was knighted on the same occasion. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 177, 191-2. The goodwill of the City was real enough, not least because Cromwell’s efforts to end the first Dutch war promised to remove an important obstacle to trade, but doubts remained, especially about the true allegiance of the ordinary citizens. It was worrying that amid the pomp of the civic entry, the crowds who watched the procession did so in silence. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 192. As well as royalist sympathisers and discontented Presbyterians, the religious sects were opposed to the protectorate. Cromwell was careful to keep in close contact with the City over the next few months, dining with the lord mayor and common council in May, delivering a speech assuring the City that trade would be encouraged and Presbyterians unmolested in September, and receiving the new lord mayor, Christopher Packe, in October. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 297, 466, 484. There were others who were less easily convinced, however. In particular, the common council elections of December 1653 had seen the return of Presbyterians in significant numbers, and this would have a profound effect on the parliamentary elections held in the autumn of 1654. Pinckney, ‘Cromwellian Parliament’, 270.

Protectorate Parliaments, 1654-9

London’s representation in Parliament was increased from four to six under the Instrument of Government, but in neither of the first two protectorate Parliaments was the City able to take advantage of its full representation. The parliamentary election of 1654 is unique in the survival of an extant list of the principal participants in the election, including the names of all 47 candidates. Harl. 6810, ff. 164-5. Of these, nine had previous parliamentary experience: five of them as City representatives (Penington, Barbon, Moyer, Ireton and Tichborne) and four for other seats (Atkin, Allein, Skippon, and Richard Salwey*). Two other nominees not elected in London came into this Parliament as Members for other constituencies: William Gibbs, as Member for Suffolk, and Charles Lloyd* for Montgomeryshire. All of these were all rejected in favour of Thomas Foot, William Steele, Thomas Adams, John Langham, Samuel Avery* and Andrew Riccard*, elected in that order. Harl. 6810, f. 164. As a group they were all experienced City politicians, but they represented a very broad spectrum of political allegiance, and jockeying for position between distinct factions may explain the result, which was divided into three equal parts. Foot and Steele were supporters of the regime, the former an excise commissioner since the 1640s and the latter a lawyer and, from 1649, recorder of London. Adams and Langham, by contrast, had been prominent Presbyterians imprisoned for their part in the ‘forcing of the Houses’ in 1647, and as early as the 1650s had become crypto-royalists. Avery and Riccard were more moderate supporters of the Presbyterian interest. Pinckney, ‘Cromwellian Parliament’, 271, 274-5. The number of MPs was soon reduced from six to four. The radical Independent Robert Tichborne, who was present at the election, refused to sign the indenture, probably in protest at the election of Adams and Langham both of whom had long been suspected of royalism. Harl. 6810, f. 164; P. Gaunt, ‘Cromwell's Purge? Exclusions and the First Protectorate Parliament’, PH vi. 14. Tichborne was later involved in the presentation of the citizens’ petition to the protectoral council complaining that Adams and Langham were ‘incapable’ and disaffected, ‘so that we fear by such men, if they sit in Parliament, to be bereft of our present mercies and disappointed of our future hopes’. The Humble Petition of Jno Mews, Alderman Tichborne and Others (1654, 669. f. 19.5); CSP Dom. 1654, p. 328. The two MPs were summoned before the council on 25 August and excluded from the session. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 335. In the session that followed, the remaining London MPs liaised with the common council, which sent them regular petitions to present to the House on such matters as the reduction of the assessment tax, the improvement of trade and the repayment of money paid on the public faith. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 107v, 109, 110v, 113v, 115. Foot and Riccard were appointed to committees with relevance for London, including those for customs and trade, but their efforts were in vain, as much of the session was taken up with constitutional debates and it was closed prematurely without any acts being passed. CJ vii. 374b, 375b, 387b, 397b.

The 18 months after the dissolution of the first protectorate Parliament saw the City elite increasing its collaboration with the protectoral regime. From the protector’s point of view, the City was vital both as a bulwark against royalist plots and as the source of loans for his increasingly insolvent government. Cromwell’s meetings with the City authorities were focused on one or other of those concerns: in February 1655 he emphasised the security threat; in October he asked for money for the navy and the Western Design; and in March 1656 he justified the major-generals and the decimation tax as important to prevent an uprising and ‘not at all to supersede them, or at least diminish any of their rights’. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iii. 623, 869; iv. 112-3; Clarke Pprs. iii. 60. Relations with the City faltered in the spring of 1656, when the customs commissioners – including such prominent citizens as Avery, Harvey I and Tichborne – were arrested for corruption. It was said that Tichborne was elected as lord mayor in the following October precisely because he was seen as an ‘irreconcilable enemy’ of Cromwell. CCSP iii. 190.. In the same month, however, news of the capture of Spanish ships carrying silver may have helped to soften relations between the protector and the City. The silver was assigned to two goldsmiths, Thomas Vyner and Edward Backwell, in return for an advance of £50,000 and £10,000 per week, which they were able to borrow against the capital to ensure speedy payment. CSP Dom. 1656-7, pp. 126, 143, 148, 184, 231. This was but the most prominent of many financial arrangements between the state and individual Londoners, who were rapidly replacing the trading Companies and the City chamber as the major source of government loans. Ashley, Financial and Commercial Policy, 98-101. The renewed confidence of the City can be seen in the lord mayors’ pageants, held each October. In 1655 the Mercers’ Company presided, on behalf of John Dethick, but this was out-done by the splendid show put on by the Skinners’ Company for Robert Tichborne in 1656, which was overtly republican and made no reference to the protector. Holberton, Poetry, 47- 60. The pageant for Tichborne in particular showed that beneath the razzmatazz the City’s alliance with the regime was flawed. The common council, backed by many aldermen and the livery companies, continued to support the Presbyterian interest, and this meant that the cosy relationship between the City governors and the regime did not translate into support for Cromwell in Parliament. The lord mayors and aldermen tended to be loyalists but the liverymen in common hall were anything but. As has been suggested, there were curious parallels with the situation faced by Charles I before the civil wars. Pinckney, ‘Cromwellian Parliament’, 278-80.

While in neighbouring constituencies the army sought to influence the outcome of the 1656 parliamentary elections by forcibly insisting on their direct participation, there is evidence that in London the scheming was by the opponents of the regime, who hoped to pack the electorate prior to the election by elevating supporters of the regime to the livery. The lieutenant of the Tower and deputy major-general, John Barkstead*, kept Secretary John Thurloe* informed of this and expressed reservations as to the outcome thus:

Sir, There was a meeting last night in the City, in which were several men whom I hope are honest, yet the greatest part of the meeting were dissatisfied persons. My friend that was with them tells me, that they assured themselves of obtaining an order from his highness for the adding a certain number of cloakmen [ie. liverymen] to be added to the electors pretending that thereby they will choose honest men. Sir, those they had in nomination among them the last night were Mr Moyer, Major Salwey, Colonel Webb, Colonel Rowe, Mr Bradriffe [?Brandreth], Alderman Tichborne, Lord [John] Bradshawe*, and one or two more. Sir, it is believed that if they obtain their order, the worst of those named (if worst may be) will be too good; for although some very good and honest men appear in this business, yet they will be overacted by a party, that underhand make use of some good men at present. TSP v. 304.

Contemporaries noted the outcome of the election, but provided very little further detail, except for one intercepted letter which commented that ‘even here among our noses the ill-affected are so bold and ungrateful, as at the elections to cry out “no soldiers, no courtiers”’. TSP v. 337.

Despite the apparently high level of organisation among the opposition, in the elections on 20 August 1656 the seats were divided friends and enemies of the regime. Thomas Foot was once again elected, and with him another supporter of the protectorate, Christopher Packe. Both men were important financiers for the government, and they proved very active representatives of their City, fielding petitions from the common council on assessments, the rights of traders and freemen, public faith debts and the maintenance of a godly ministry, many of which were left in the hands of the MPs to present ‘when they see fit’. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 141v, 144, 147, 150v, 152v-3, 153v, 154v, 155v. Packe and Foot, supported by another alderman, Charles Lloyd* (who sat for a Welsh seat) were tireless in their defence of the City’s rights during the winter of 1656-7, speaking in debates on the assessment, mercantile companies, beggars, Quakers and other matters. Burton’s Diary i. 21-3, 169, 171, 175, 180, 210, 212-4, 221, 308-10. Packe distinguished himself in February 1657 by bringing in the Remonstrance which first offered the crown to Cromwell, and he joined Foot and Lloyd in voting in favour of including the crown in the Humble Petition and Advice in March. Clarke Pprs. iii. 89; A Narrative of Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). After the distractions of the kingship debates, Packe and Lloyd resumed their involvement in London business, speaking in debates on assessments, the new tax on buildings, and debts on the public faith. Burton’s Diary ii. 84, 160, 180-1, 208, 232, 236; CJ vii. 531b, 563b-4a, 563a. Their four colleagues could not emulate this frenzy of activity as they were to a greater or lesser extent associated with the Presbyterian interest and as a result were immediately excluded by the protectoral council. Thomas Adams, Richard Browne II and John Jones II had all been Presbyterians during the Long Parliament, and their conduct since then had not endeared themselves to the commonwealth or the protectorate. They were joined by Theophilus Biddulph, whose guilt was by association, as his father Michael Biddulph* had been secluded from Parliament at Pride’s Purge. Adams, Biddulph, and Jones were all included in the (probably spurious) remonstrance of excluded members in September 1656; the common council petitioned Parliament in June 1657 for the readmission of their MPs ‘if there be no just exception against them’; but only Biddulph took up his seat during the second sitting in 1658. Whitelocke, Mems., iv. 280; CLRO, Jor. 41x, f. 156. According to Foot, in his speech to the Commons on 1 February 1658, the lifting of the exclusions had encouraged the MPs to at least consider rejoining the House: ‘there are three Members of the City, viz. Browne, Adams and [Jones] that would willingly attend, if you would declare that the penalty extends only to future Parliaments’. Burton’s Diary ii. 405.

Outwardly, the relationship between the protectoral regime and the City remained strong during 1657-8. When Cromwell was re-inaugurated as protector in June 1657 he was attended by the lord mayor, and in early July he made a second formal entry into the City, where he was met ‘in great state’ and the Humble Petition read ‘with great solemnity’ in various locations. Clarke Pprs. iii. 113. On the same occasion there were signs of dissent, however. More worryingly, royalist sentiment appeared to be increasing: in December it was said that ‘Christmas Day was never more exactly observed by this City than the last’ with stories of ‘superstitions and ceremonies’ in a number of churches. Clarke Pprs. iii. 130. The financial crisis which faced the Cromwellian regime in 1657-8 necessarily affected the City, but with the usual sources of income closed, the regime was forced to innovate. In the summer of 1657 a new tax on unauthorised buildings in London and its suburbs was used as security on loans from prominent citizens such as Vyner, Packe, Dethick, Foot and Ireton. Ashley, Financial and Commercial Policy, 101. At the same time the customs and excise were farmed to a consortium of City financiers including Dethick and Martin Noell*, who promised to pay the government the vast sum of £800,000 a year. Clarke Pprs. iii. 114; Ashley, Financial and Commercial Policy, 53-4. Neither of these was a resounding success, and Cromwell’s attempt to stimulate trade by, for example, granting a new charter to the East India Company in October 1657, did little to help his immediate financial situation. Ashley, Financial and Commercial Policy, 115. The extent of his frustration can be seen in January 1658, before the dissolution of Parliament, when the protector and the lord mayor had an angry exchange, with the latter’s refusal to advance a loan provoking the response that ‘if he would not undertake to procure him money, he knew how to do it himself’. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iv. 723. In March the East India Company once again refused to give Cromwell a loan. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iv. 755. In the same month, in a speech to the corporation, Cromwell emphasised the danger of invasion and urged them ‘to provide for their own security and the security of the whole nation’ by settling the militia ‘in the hands of faithful and pious men’. Abbott, Writings and Speeches iv. 760-1. According to Thurloe this speech was very well received, with the common council expressing ‘very great affection and duty to his highness and government’, but the only result was another tranche of loans for the navy provided by staunch supporters of the regime such as Packe and Foot. TSP vii. 4; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 290.

The accession of Richard Cromwell* did little to relieve the financial problems facing the protectorate and it certainly saw a deterioration in relations with the army. Nevertheless, the lord mayor and aldermen made an outward show of their loyalty by taking part in the funeral procession for Oliver Cromwell on 23 November 1658. Burton’s Diary ii. 525-6. Despite this, the return of all but one of the 1656 excluded Members as successful candidates at the polls on 12 December 1658 points to the sustained hostility accorded the protectorate within the common hall. The Venetian resident saw this as a symptomatic of the situation across the whole country, commenting with some surprise that ‘even the City of London has chosen Members of Parliament who are not thorough-going supporters of the present rule’. CSP Ven. 1657-9, p. 284. Those with closer links to the protectoral regime were resigned to the enmity of the citizens. Thomas Clarges* reported to Henry Cromwell* that ‘so many are in nomination that I am not able to guess at those will carry it’, adding that John Fowke and others had opposed plans to hold a feast for Richard in the City for fear that it would, like the entertainment of November 1641, cause ‘much jealousy’ in Parliament. TSP vii. 559. Under the Humble Petition and Advice, London reverted to its traditional practice of returning four MPs to Westminster in 1659. Of the four elected – Theophilus Biddulph, Richard Browne II, John Jones II, and William Thomson – only Thomson, brother of the merchants Maurice and George Thomson*, could be said to be an active supporter of the government. Of what was evidently a wide field of candidates, the name of only one other is known: Alderman John Robinson†, who was ‘until of late years as great a cavalier as was in England, and a near kinsman to the late bishop of Canterbury [William Laud]’, and now competed with Browne for the fourth place. Bodl. Clarendon 59, f. 444. The decision in favour of Browne was not reached until sometime after the main polling day, when ‘another meeting’ was held to decide the last place, and this was seen by contemporaries as an attempt by the outgoing lord mayor, John Ireton, to prevent Browne’s election. Mercurius Politicus no. 549 (6-13 Jan. 1659), 160; CCSP iv. 133-4.

London remained divided in its attitude towards Richard during the session that followed. Radicals such as Moyer and William Kiffen* roused up republican sentiment in February 1659, presenting to Parliament a petition against the regime reputedly signed by 20-40,000 citizens, but it was easily suppressed. TSP vi. 609, 615; Henry Cromwell Corresp., 448, 458, 460. On 20 April Tichborne and Ireton issued a remonstrance to the council of officers ‘in which they declared their resolution with the army to stick to the Good Old Cause’. Clarendon, Hist. vi. 101-2. News of this ‘universally enraged’ public opinion against the aldermen, and a day later the mayor and aldermen sent Richard a declaration that they would ‘stand by him as their chief magistrate and the two Houses of Parliament with the utmost of their lives and fortunes’. Bodl. Clarendon 60, f. 465; Clarke Pprs. iii. 192. After the fall of the protectorate the City factions did their best to court the new regime. On 9 May Moyer and Kiffen re-submitted their radical petition to the Rump, where it was read and the petitioners thanked. CJ vii. 649a-50a. Later in the same month the common council sent another, rather different, petition to the Rump, which called for the ministry to be upheld, trade revived and government to be settled across the three nations. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 204v-5. The influence of London was limited, however, not least because they still had only the one MP, in the form of Isaac Penington. There were soon renewed tensions with the army. In July the militia bill introduced sectarians such as Barbon and Kiffen into the London commission, increased the City’s regiments to six (which were to be raised at the expense of the householders), and allowed Parliament to choose their officers. There followed a petition from the City protesting against such breaches of privilege and asking that those forces would not be deployed outside the capital. De Krey, London and the Restoration, 22; M. Weinstock, ‘The Position of London in National Affairs, 1658-60’ (London Univ. MA thesis, 1934), 89. According to one contemporary, ‘the City is sick of its new militia’. Nicholas Pprs. iv. 23. Although there was no rising among the citizens in sympathy with that led by Sir George Boothe* in the north, their resentment was palpable. A Commons’ resolution of 2 September, that John Ireton would continue as lord mayor, was opposed by the aldermen and common council, who petitioned against such outrageous interference, and Thomas Alleyne was elected instead. CJ vii. 773a, 787b, 788a; CLRO, Rep. 66, f. 310v; De Krey, London and the Restoration, 23-3. In reaction, the commonwealthsmen withdrew from the City government. D.C. Elliot, ‘Elections to the Common Council of the City of London’, Guildhall Studies in London Hist. iv. (1981), 142, 152.

The army coup in October 1659 was opposed by most Londoners, and although Ireton and Tichborne were chosen for the committee of safety, their influence, and that of their radical friends in London, was rapidly waning. De Krey, London and the Restoration, 29-31; Weinstock, ‘Position of London’, 113. In November attempts in common council to prevent the reading of a letter from George Monck* were voted down, the request from the army and its allies for a loan was refused in the same month, and in December the apprentices were again on the streets, calling for a free Parliament. CCSP iv. 457; Weinstock, ‘Position of London’, 113, 130, 132. The common council elections in the same month brought in many Presbyterians and royalists in defiance of the army. De Krey, London and the Restoration, 38. On 19 January 1660 the City sent representatives to confer with Monck, and the general entered London in early February. CLRO, Jor. 41, ff. 216v-7, 219. His decision to allow the MPs secluded in 1648 to return to the Commons was greeted by celebrations in the streets of London, with bonfires and bells. De Krey, London and the Restoration, 52. In the days before the restoration the City was keen to emphasise its loyalty to the Stuarts, and in May 1660 a delegation was sent to The Hague, where Adams and Langham were knighted by Charles II. Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 225. When the new king processed through London on 29 May, he was greeted by bells and trumpets and drums and ‘such shouting as the oldest man alive never heard’. Rugg Diurnal, ed. Sachse, 89-90; De Krey, London and the Restoration, 3. It was a far cry from the rioting and disturbances that had prompted his father to flee from London in January 1642.