Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire was the largest county in England after Yorkshire, and like its northern neighbour it was divided into three administrative districts – Holland, Kesteven and Lindsey. Its decay as a producer and exporter of wool and cloth, which was all too apparent by the early sixteenth century, continued to cast a long shadow over the county’s economy. VCH Lincs. ii. 319-20, 332; HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Lincolnshire’. Among the communities that were hit hardest by this decline were Lincolnshire’s ports and towns. VCH Lincs. ii. 328; Holmes, Lincs. 13-14. Lincoln, for example, once a thriving centre in the international wool trade, presented a sorry spectacle by the mid-seventeenth century, with a population perhaps half the size it had been at the height of the city’s medieval prosperity. Infra, ‘Lincoln’; VCH Lincs. ii. 301-2. A stagnant local economy encouraged some of the county’s gentry to invest in land enclosure and crown-sponsored fen drainage schemes. Large tracts of the north west and south east of the county were rendered unfit for tillage by periodic flooding and were eyed by land-hungry gentry and profit-seeking courtiers as ripe for improvement. Yet the generous commons rights in the fens, and the richness of its pasture and other natural resources, sustained a vigorous and independent-minded society of yeomen and small farmers. Lindley, Fenland Riots, 1-22. Indeed, the seventeenth century witnessed an influx of common people into the fens from the upland regions in the west and north-east of the county, where rising prices, land enclosure (the conversion of arable to pasture for sheep) and the emergence of more intensive, market-oriented farming put increasing strain on insufficient resources. Holmes, Lincs. 19-28; J. Walter, ‘‘The pooremans joy and the gentlemans plague’: a Lincs. libel and the politics of sedition in early modern England’, P and P cciii. 33-5, 44-9.

With so much riding on the exploitation of the fenlands, the issue of fen drainage aroused strong feelings among commoners and gentry alike and thus had a major impact upon the county’s electoral politics. A Breviate of the Cause Depending (1651) 7 (669 f.19.63); CSP Dom. 1654, p. 279; Lindley, Fenland Riots, 108-9, 112. Demographically, too, the fens had a destabilising effect, attracting ‘multitudes of the poor sort’ but then exposing them to malaria and waterborne diseases that produced mortality rates well above the county average. Holmes, Lincs. 19-20; J.A. Johnson, ‘Population trends in Lincs. 1601-1800’, Lincs. Hist. and Arch. xxxi. 23-4. By the 1640s, Lincolnshire contained at least 37,000 adult males, which indicates a population of over 120,000 (still less than half of what it had been in 1300). Protestation Returns 1641-2, Lincs. ed. W.F. Webster, vi; Recs. of Early Eng. Drama: Lincs. ed. J. Stokes (2009), ii. 371-2. The electorate in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in 1656, held under the terms of the Instrument of Government, numbered at least 640. Lincs. RO, 1-MM/6/10/6/1-12.

The pattern of parliamentary selection that had emerged in Lincolnshire during the 1620s, when the county had generally returned a court supporter and one of a trio of godly knights, seems to have re-asserted itself in the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640. The shire seats were contested by at least five candidates, of which two – the future royalists John Farmerie* and Charles Dallison – apparently stood together. Farmerie was a noted Laudian and an upholder of the crown’s fen drainage projects, while Dallison was the popishly-inclined recorder of Lincoln. Their backers, perhaps aware that both men were compromised by their support for the personal rule of Charles I, attempted to portray them as sound Protestants and defenders of the ‘country’ interest

Choose no ship sheriffs nor court atheist,

No fen drainer nor church papist,

But if you’ll scour the pope’s armoury

Choose Dallison and Dr Farmerie. Add. 11045, f. 99v.

But the county’s freeholders were not persuaded of either man’s credentials as ‘patriots’ and on 30 March 1640 returned Sir John Wray and Sir Edward Hussey. C142/42/1/132. Wray, who had represented the shire in 1625 and 1628 Parliaments, was one of the county’s foremost puritans. Although his estate was among the largest in Lincolnshire, his interest probably derived mainly from his record as a trenchant Protestant, a Forced-Loan refuser and a prominent critic of the scheme for draining the Isle of Axholme. Infra, ‘Sir John Wray’. Hussey, by contrast, had been one of the crown’s most trusted servants in Lincolnshire since the 1620s and would side with the king during the civil war. He probably owed his return to the strength of his proprietorial interest in the county and the support he had given the Kesteven taxpayers in a 1638 Ship Money rating dispute. Infra, ‘Sir Edward Hussey’. His election was contested by another godly Lincolnshire patriot, Sir Edward Ayscoghe*, who may well have stood with Wray. Why his name had failed to make it on to the sheriff’s return with Wray’s is not clear. Perhaps his involvement in the drainage of the Ancholme Level having had undermined his popularity with the voters and he had come third to Hussey on a poll. Infra, ‘Sir Edward Ayscoghe’. On receiving a petition from Ayscoghe against Hussey’s return, the Commons upheld Wray’s election but cast doubt upon that of Hussey by ordering that an indenture drawn up by Ayscoghe’s supporters be delivered to the committee of privileges. CJ ii. 10b. The dispute had still to be settled when the Short Parliament was dissolved.

The renewed strength of the country interest following the second bishops’ war seems to have worked to Ayscoghe’s advantage, and in the elections to the Long Parliament he was returned with Sir John Wray on 12 October – Ayscoghe taking the junior seat. C219/43/2/31. There is no evidence that their election was contested and nor is the indenture – one of only two Lincolnshire returns to have survived for this period – at all revealing of voting numbers. One of Wray’s first actions in the Long Parliament was to present a petition from the county, complaining about ‘draining of fens and taking their lands from them’. CJ ii. 22b; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 21; Procs. LP i. 64; Lindley, Fenland Riots, 112.

Both of Lincolnshire’s MPs sided with Parliament in the civil war, although their involvement in parliamentary politics tailed off after 1646. Ayscoghe, who seems to have aligned with the Presbyterians in 1648, was removed at Pride’s Purge; Wray was allowed to retain his seat but had already retired from political life by this point. Infra, ‘Sir Edward Ayscoghe’; ‘Sir John Wray’. The county itself was disputed territory for the first two years of the war, and the sympathies of the majority of its inhabitants defy precise categorisation. Broadly speaking, the king’s party was strongest on the western margins of Lincolnshire and in the south-west of the county, particularly in those parts of Kesteven where the royalist peer Robert Bertie, 1st earl of Lindsey (and following his death at Edgehill, his son Montagu Bertie†, 2nd earl), had most influence. Support for Parliament was most in evidence in the south-east of the county – around Boston and its hinterland in the Holland Fen – and in the north-west, in the Isle of Axholme. In other words, there was a broad correlation between fenland resistance to Charles I’s drainage projects and allegiance to Parliament. Holmes, Lincs. 158, 160; Lindley, Fenland Riots, 139-47. In the early 1640s, the Commons had tacitly permitted the fenlanders to destroy the drainage works and dispossess the drainage undertakers, most of whom were prominent royalists. In return, many fenlanders had given ‘cheerful assistance and liberal contributions’ to Parliament during the civil war. Lindley, Fenland Riots, 112-40.

The fenland commoners’ alignment with Parliament began to break down during the early 1650s, however, as the undertakers’ efforts to recover their property received growing support at Westminster. Lindley, Fenland Riots, 161-5, 168-82. The dissolution of the Rump in 1653 offered the increasingly beleaguered fenlanders some respite, but the selection of men to represent Lincolnshire in the Nominated Parliament can have given them little encouragement. All five nominees were essentially minor figures in county affairs and had shown little interest in the fenlanders’ cause. Indeed, Barnaby Bowtell was a Suffolk man, who may well have owed his selection purely to his links with Cromwell. Infra, ‘Barnaby Bowtell’. None of the five would represent the county on a subsequent occasion.

Lincolnshire was allotted ten seats under the Instrument of Government, giving scope to a variety of interests, including the fenmen, to secure representation at Westminster. Unfortunately, the Lincolnshire election indenture for the first protectoral Parliament has not survived. However, it may well be significant that the order in which the ten MPs were named in the printed lists of the 1654 returns (Rosseter, Thomas Hall, Lister, Charles Hall, Clinton alias Fines, Hatcher, Wolley, Savile, Welby and Wray) closely resembles the poll results of the ten successful candidates in the 1656 elections. The Names of the Members of Parliament (1654), 65 (E.1953.2); A Perfect List of the Members Returned and Approved by the Councill to Sit in Parliament (1654, 669 f.19.8). This, and the fact that nine of the ten men elected in 1654 were returned again in 1656, strongly suggests that the 1654 elections also went to a poll. Most of the ten had served on the parliamentary county committee in the 1640s, and seven – Charles Hall, Thomas Hall, Clinton alias Fines, Hatcher, Rosseter, Savile and Welby – had either opposed the Rump or been purged from the bench during the early 1650s. Lister was the only leading Rumper in the group, although Wolley and Wray seem to have accommodated themselves to the commonwealth regime. That all but two of the ten – Edward Rosseter and John Wray – came from the southern half of Lincolnshire, where most of the county’s fenland was to be found, may also not be entirely accidental. Thomas Hall, for example, a minor Holland gentleman, was elected largely on the strength of his zeal in the fenlanders’ cause. Infra, ‘Thomas Hall’. One contemporary denounced him as

the common solicitor for those rioters in Lincolnshire and an opposer of all public works which are enriching of the nation. [He] is a mean person and is only chosen knight of the shire for his factious humour ... Sir William Armyne* and John Hatcher† [son of Thomas Hatcher*] are much fitter. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 279.

In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, Lincolnshire returned the same men it had two years earlier with the exception of John Wray, whose place was taken by Charles Hussey (Sir Edward’s son) – another champion of the fenlanders. Infra, ‘Charles Hussey’. Although the indenture has not survived, a poll book has, and it reveals that the election involved at least 28 candidates, although it is very doubtful that all of these men had contested the election or were present on the day. Lincs. RO, 1-MM/6/10/6/1-12. Either singly or in groups of up to 33 in number, the voters handed in signed slips of paper naming the men – sometimes the full ten, sometimes less – they wanted to represent them at Westminster. Lincs. RO, 1-MM/6/10/5. The total number of votes cast was 6,371, which indicates that the turn-out on this occasion was at the very least 640 (by no means all the voters having cast their full ten votes). Topping the poll was Thomas Hall with 653 votes – 77 more than his nearest rival – further testament to the importance of the drainage issue in county politics. The most notable of the defeated candidates were Sir Henry Vane II* and Major-general Edward Whalley*. Lincs. RO, 1-MM/6/10/6/1-12. Vane had settled in the county in the early 1650s after purchasing the earl of Lindsey’s Belleau estate. Infra, ‘Sir Henry Vane II’. Evidently his radicalism and lack of local roots did not appeal to the Lincolnshire electorate. Whalley, the Cromwellian major-general for the east midlands, was returned for his native Nottinghamshire and almost certainly never contended for one of the Lincolnshire places. Infra, ‘Edward Whalley’. This, and his unpopularity as a major-general and ‘stranger’, would explain why he received just one vote. Of the ten successful candidates, six – Charles Hall, Hussey, Lister, Savile, Welby and Wolley – were excluded by the protectoral council, while a seventh, Rosseter, apparently refused to take his seat in protest. Infra, ‘Edward Rosseter’; CJ vii. 425b. It is likely that Lister, a thoroughgoing commonwealthsman, was excluded as a opponent of the protectorate per se. The other five, however, were probably guilty of no more than voicing opposition to the rule of the major-generals.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, Lincolnshire reverted to its customary two seats, and the effect was a return to a more traditional voting pattern. At some point early in 1659, the freeholders elected two of the county’s most senior parliamentary politicians and military men, Thomas Hatcher and Colonel Edward Rosseter. Once again, the election indenture has not survived. The two men probably stood together, as they would do in the elections to the 1660 Convention a year later, and their combined popularity – they had come second and third respectively in the 1656 poll – was probably enough to squeeze out Thomas Hall, assuming that he had stood. Infra, ‘Thomas Hatcher’; ‘Edward Rosseter’. The fall of the protectorate in April 1659 deprived the county of parliamentary representation until the Convention.