Rochester

Visitors to Rochester – a city dominated by its Norman castle, cathedral and 11 arch stone bridge over the Medway – agreed that it was an impressive town which had seen better days. The poet and traveller John Taylor described it as ‘a fine neat city’, although ‘oftentimes spoiled’. J. Taylor, Honourable and Memorable Foundations (1636), sig. B. Thomas Philipott noted that the city was

eminent for its antiquity as … for its strength and grandeur, and had not those violent impressions, which the rough hand of war formerly defaced it with, demolished its bulk, and discomposed its beauty, peradventure might have been registered at this day in the inventory of the principal cities of this nation. T. Philipott, Villare Cantianum (1659), 284.

Rochester’s economy was dominated by the local brewing industry, as well as the nearby oyster fishery, but equally important was its proximity to Chatham, and the royal dockyards. A number of figures connected with the navy became involved in the town’s affairs, although few of these were returned as MPs in the early part of the century. F F. Smith, Hist. Rochester (1928), ch. 9.

Rochester had a fairly large population – 2,000 communicants in 1676 – and its size and prosperity is also evident from its Ship Money assessment, which was one of the largest in the county. Compton Census, 407. In December 1634 it was required to pay £150, although this fell in subsequent years, in line with the trend in the region. E. Kent RO, Do/AAm2, f. 144v; Add. 47788, f. 73; M.D. Gordon, ‘Collection of Ship Money in the reign of Charles I’, TRHS ser. 3, iv. 158. That this levy proved unpopular is evident from Sir Edward Dering’s* notes on the meeting in 1634 at which Kent’s assessment was distributed among the towns and ports. Dering recorded that the most vocal dissent came from the representatives from Rochester, and that he himself faced ‘some language undeserved’. According to Dering’s testimony, one John Duling ‘did in unmannerly and taxing fashion say that their assessment was unjustly laid’, while another of the townsmen ‘did tax me for being here’. Add. 47788, f. 74; Medway Archives, RCA/A5/1, ff. 6-7. There is little other evidence of disaffection towards the government from within the town, although there may have been a puritan faction within the corporation by the late 1620s, from the evidence of the 1629 order that no resident was to allow dirt to lie at his door on the sabbath. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 295. Later in the century some 7% of its communicants were recorded as being nonconformists. Compton Census, 407.

Rochester’s historic importance was reflected in the fact that it was first incorporated by the charter of 1189, although by 1640 it was operating under the charter confirmation of 1629. According to the latter document it was governed by 12 aldermen, one of whom served as mayor, as well as 12 common councillors, a recorder, and a town clerk. Smith, Rochester, 41, 48, 50-3; Rochester Museum, Rochester custumal, f. 79; Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, pp. 140, 259, 277. Since 1628 its high constable had been Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 259. Rochester had returned burgesses to Parliament since the fourteenth century, and in the early seventeenth century its MPs included prominent members of the local gentry like Sir Thomas Walsingham†, who sat in the last two Elizabethan Parliaments and the first assembly called by James I, and the city’s recorder, Henry Clerke†. Smith, Rochester, ch. 18. Although the borough did not formally pay its MPs, gifts may occasionally have been given, such as the plate awarded to Clerke in October 1626, in recognition of his services in Parliament. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 186. The franchise rested in those who had been made free of the town, which cost £5, and which was theoretically limited to householders, even if this requirement may not have been enforced. Smith, Rochester, 447.

In the election for the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Rochester returned familiar local figures, although it is not known whether the freemen were lobbied by any other outside interests, court or otherwise, to support rival candidates. The first seat went to Sir Thomas Walsingham, who had succeeded his father to the seat in 1621, and retained the place ever since. The second seat went to John Clerke I, son of the town’s recorder, who can only have been returned on his father’s interest, and at his behest, given that he was barely old enough to stand, and that he was still a student at the Middle Temple. C219/42/1B/1/115. By contrast, the election held in the following autumn was more remarkable, although there is little surviving evidence of a contest. On this occasion the freemen returned in first place Richard Lee, whose estate lay within one of the town’s parishes, and who was probably recognized as a critic of the court. Walsingham was returned for the second seat. C219/43/4/1/9. Lee would emerge as a zealous parliamentarian during the civil wars, not least as governor of nearby Upnor Castle. CJ ii. 760a; LJ vii. 365a. That the town may have been divided over his return is evident from events at the outbreak of hostilities, when he met some resistance in his attempts to secure the town’s strategically important bridge for Parliament. An account written by those involved in the parliamentarian effort in the region claimed that, while they found support at Chatham, ‘we cannot say we found such love at Rochester’. Perfect Diurnall of the Severall Passages in Our Late Journey into Kent (1642), 2-3, 4 (E.116.33). There is little evidence of overt hostility to the parliamentarian cause during the course of the war, however, and Lee was chosen as mayor in 1643. Moreover, when Kentish royalists endeavoured to make a stand in the city during the spring of 1648, they found little local support. Quickly overwhelmed by the forces of Sir Thomas Fairfax*, the citizens were subsequently reported to have been ‘very full of discontent’ towards the insurgents. Letter from Kent of the Rising at Rochester (1648)(E443.26); Bloudy Newes from Kent (1648), 1 (E.445.36); Designes of the Rebels in Kent (1648), 4 (E.446.18).

Richard Lee ceased to sit after Pride’s Purge, although he does not appear to have been secluded by the army, and while Walsingham remained a member of the Commons, his main motivation may have been to retain parliamentary privilege against his creditors. Certainly there is little indication that he played any part in the order passed by the Committee for Indemnity in early 1650, whereby the corporation was purged of four aldermen who were opposed to the parliamentarian cause, or at least to republican rule. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 680. Thereafter, the corporation signalled its support for the new government by commissioning a new ceremonial mace, but it refused to accept, or pay for, the one which the goldsmith produced, which was some 50 per cent heavier than they had requested. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 691.

Rochester retained its right to send representatives to Westminster during the Cromwellian protectorate, but was reduced to one Member under the terms of the Instrument of Government. In 1654 the freemen chose John Parker I*, the recorder of Gravesend, who had been an active parliamentarian administrator in the county during the 1640s, aligned with local Independents, and who had since emerged as a lawyer of some stature at Westminster. Parker proved to be a loyal supporter of the protectorate, and was made a serjeant-at-law in 1655, and baron of the exchequer in early 1656. It was undoubtedly as a court candidate that he was returned again in 1656, when Parker’s influence at Whitehall probably made him particularly attractive to Rochester’s freemen. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/2, f. 18. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether these freemen approved of Parker’s subsequent emergence as an active supporter of constitutional reform, including attempts to persuade Oliver Cromwell* to accept the crown. The city had become something of a focal point for radical religion during the 1650s. One of the preachers at Rochester Cathedral during this period was the former Seeker and Ranter, Joseph Salmon, who had been imprisoned for his beliefs in 1650, and he was succeeded in 1655 by another Seeker, Richard Coppin. Coppin’s sermons caused notable controversy, however, and a group of local ministers, led by Walter Rosewell of Chatham, quickly organized sermons against what they regarded as his blasphemy. Such debates led to the examination and imprisonment of Coppin by Parker and the local major-general, Thomas Kelsey*, in December 1655, the latter accusing him of being ‘an enemy to the present power’. Oxford DNB; R. Coppin, Blow at the Serpent (1656), sig. B, 79; W. Rosewell, Serpents Subtilty (1656, E.882.9).

The extent to which the freemen of Rochester resented Parker’s political views is not clear, for although he was not returned again in 1659, it is likely that he did not seek re-election. Moreover, the election to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament demonstrated that the freemen were prepared to favour loyal servants of the Cromwellian regime, albeit men who displayed more enthusiasm for religious Independency than Parker had done. More importantly, the 1659 election reveals, for the first time in this period, the influence of the navy, and of nearby Chatham. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/2, f. 32v. The first seat was taken by Richard Hutchinson, a prominent London merchant and sometime client of Sir Henry Vane II*, who had been treasurer of the navy since 1650, and a freeman of the corporation since October 1651. Medway Archives, RCA/A1/1, p. 705. The second seat, meanwhile, went to Peter Pett of Chatham, a master ship-builder who also served as one of the navy commissioners and governor of Chatham Chest. When the Rump Parliament was recalled in May 1659 Richard Lee was dead, but Walsingham resumed his seat as the Member for Rochester, although once again his contribution to proceedings was limited, and he may have sat only to avoid financial ruin.