Essex freeholders' petition to the Short Parliament in 1640

 

The decade of the 1630s was marked by the imposition of unpopular policies in Essex and elsewhere by the regime of King Charles I. In the Church of England, Puritan ministers found themselves silenced and often deprived of their livings for resisting the new emphasis on the sacraments rather than on preaching, on the doctrine of free will rather than on predestination, on the movement of altars to the East end of churches and over the toleration of games on Sundays. In the State, levies like Ship Money were extended inland (without Parliamentary sanction), novel monopolies in trade were established and the forest of Essex’s boundaries were widened to cover almost all of the county. Naturally enough, when Charles was obliged to call Parliament again in the spring of 1640 because of Scotland’s rebellion, the grievances of the freeholders of Essex were presented to the House of Commons through the hands of the county’s two M.P.s, Sir Thomas Barrington of Hatfield Broad Oak and Sir Harbottle Grimston of Bradfield Hall.

Other counties had similar complaints. But the order in which the complaints were made in a formal petition on Church and State matters was common to the petition from Hertfordshire presented to the House of Commons on the same day (18 April, 1640). The burden of ecclesiastical courts and the dangers of heresy and schism threatening to undermine the peace of the commonwealth were stressed in both petitions. Hertfordshire like Essex was imperilled by exactions like impositions, monopolies, and ship money although not by an extension of forest boundaries. The two petitions shared some phrases and made the same case against the King’s rule. What appears, prima facie, to have been a summary of a petition from the freeholders of Northamptonshire had been presented the previous day with a similar order setting out that county’s grievances.[1]

It is impossible to be certain but the likelihood that these petitions were part of an organised campaign cannot be ruled out. The dominant figure in Essex and in the contested county election to the Short Parliament, Robert Rich, 2^nd Earl of Warwick, had close connections with Hertfordshire as did Barrington and also held land in Northamptonshire. The petitions from the first two of these counties were preserved in a collection of miscellaneous papers along with other material linked to Warwick’s household Chaplain, John Gauden, later Dean of Bocking.[2] The balance of the evidence hints at the co-ordination of protests against the Caroline regime. Admittedly, this came to nothing in the spring of 1640: after the failure of Charles I’s expedition against the Scots in the summer of that year, the redress of these grievances became irresistible when the Long Parliament met in November, 1640.

                                                                                                    Christopher Thompson

---

[1] Esther S. Cope and Willson H. Coates, ed., Proceedings of the Short Parliament of 1640 (Camden Society. 4^th Series. Volume 19. London, 1977), Pp.274-278.

[2] British Library. Harleian Ms.4931 for the inclusion there of Edward Benlowes’s verses which also appear in Cambridge University Library MS. Add.5350 along with other tributes to Warwick’s late daughter-in-law, Lady Anne Rich.