Abstract
THE English Civil War broke out untidily and haphazardly. No-one had wanted it and the nation as a whole faced up to it slowly and reluctantly, seeking to preserve itself from the bloodshed, miseries and burdens that fighting was bound to bring. The initial military campaign between September and December 1642 cut a swathe of plunder across the midlands; it left some confusion and disorder in its wake yet it was a passing wind. This essay is concerned with provincial reactions to the war in the period between that campaign and the breakdown of the Treaty of Oxford negotiations in April 1643. It is focused on the local struggles that spluttered through the first autumn and winter of the war before becoming entrenched in the following summer, struggles that brought the war home to Englishmen living in every corner of the land.1
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Notes and References
Gardiner, vol. 1, pp. 23–88.
These two paragraphs are based on chapter n of A. Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (1981).
HMC, Portland MSS, vol. 1, 92–3, 96. R. Hutton, The Royalist War Effort (1981) pp. 33–40.
The Herbert Correspondence, ed. W.J. Smith (1963) p. 114; Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley, ed. T. T. Lewis (Camden Society, LVIII, 1853) p. 187.
The Ottley Papers, ed. W. Phillips (Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, vii, 1895) p. 279.
The Diary of Henry Townshend, ed. J. W. Willis-Bund (Worcestershire Historical Society, 1915) vol. ii, pp. 90–120; R. H. Silcock, ‘County Government in Worcestershire, 1603–1660’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, London (1974) pp. 238–52.
Holmes, The Eastern Association in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1974) pp. 53–4
Tibbutt, Bedfordshire in the First Civil War (Elstow Moot Hall leaflets, 3) pp. 4–5
HMC, 3rd Report, p. 275.
‘The Journal of Prince Rupert’s Marches’, ed. C. H. Firth, EHR, xiii (1898) 731–2.
HMC, Hastings MSS, vol. ii, p. 94; BL E85(9): Special Passages, 10–17 Jan. 1643; Clarendon, History, vol. ii, pp. 472–3.
BL E84(29): Kingdom’s Weekly Intelligencer, 3–10 Jan. 1643; A. Carter and J. Stevenson, The Oxfordshire Area in the Civil War (BBC Radio Oxford, 1976); C. H. Firth, ‘The Civil War in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire’, Proceedings of the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society, v (1980) 281–3.
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Somers Tracts, vol. v, pp. 305–11; R. E. Sherwood, Civil Strife in the Midlands (1974) pp. 46–7, 56; HMC, Portland MSS, vol. 1, pp. 67, 71.
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Fletcher, Outbreak, pp. 302–410, passim.
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BL E86(3): Special Passages, 17–24 Jan. 1643; HMC, Portland MSS, vol. 1, pp. 95–6; Civil War Tracts of Cheshire, ed. J. A. Atkinson (Chetham Society, LXV, 1909) pp. 18–34; Memorials of the Civil War in Cheshire, ed. T. Malbon, (Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, xix, 1889) pp. 30–48; R. N. Dore, The Civil Wars in Cheshire (Chester, 1966) pp. 23–8.
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HMC, Portland MSS, vol. i, pp. 63–4, 66–81, 84, 102; R. Bell, Memorials of the Civil War (1849) vol. i, pp. 21–40.
HMC, Portland MSS, vol. i, p. 103; A. R. Bayley, The Civil War in Dorset (1910) pp.63–4.
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Fletcher, Outbreak, pp. 384–6.
Staffordshire RO, D 593/8/8/1/7; William Salt Library, Stafford, Salt MSS 341/2.
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Lib., Dep C MS 153, no. 111.
BL E85(45): Certain Informations, 16–23 Jan. 1643; E89(4): Certain Informations, 6–13 Feb. 1643; E90(28): Certain Informations, 20–7 Feb. 1643; A. J. Fletcher, ‘Petitioning and the Outbreak of the Civil War in Derbyshire’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, xciii (1973) 39–41.
Everitt, Change in the Provinces (1969) p. 8.
HMC, Portland MSS, vol. i, p. 70; Bodl. Lib., Dep C MS 153, no. 115; HMC, Ancaster MSS, p. 411; Gardiner, vol. i, p. 79n.
HMC, Portland MSS, vol. i, p. 90; HMC, Coke MSS, vol. ii, p. 329.
Staffordshire RO D 868/3/13a; The Buller Papers, ed. R. N. Worth (1895) p.91.
BL Harl. MSS 382, fol. 206r; 383, fol. 207r; Phillips, Ottley Papers, pp. 261–2.
BL E84(39): Petitions of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire to the King; E85(6): Petition of Berkshire to the King; LJ, v, 545; HMC, Coke MSS, vol. ii, p. 328; Holmes, East Anglia, pp. 42, 53–4, 61; Gardiner, vol. i, pp. 74–5, 78, 81–2; V. Pearl, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1961) pp. 250–75.
Webb, The Civil War in Herefordshire (1879) pp. 354–5; Willis-Bund, Diary of Henry Townshend, vol. ii, pp. 94–5; Morrill, Revolt, p. 161.
BL E84(31): Petition of Bristol to the King; Reading Records, ed. J. M. Guilding (1896) vol. iv, p. 70; Salisbury District Council Muniment Room, Ledger book D, fo. ior.
Fletcher, Outbreak, chs. 3, 6, 8, 9 and passim.
Lib., Dep C MS 165, no. 119; Holmes, East Anglia, pp. 42, 248–9.
BL 669 f 6(96): Petitiion of Westminster to the Commons.
Holmes, East Anglia, pp. 43–5, 61.
Staffodshire RO, Quarter Sessions Order Book, pp. 142, 151; Pennington and Roots, Committee at Stafford, pp. xviii, xx, xxii, xxviii, 7, 297; Fletcher, Outbreak, pp. 362–3, 384–6.
Nottinghamshire RO, QSM 12, pp. 152, 160.
East Suffolk RO, B 105/2/1, fos 50r–57r; Holmes, East Anglia, pp. 49–52; Ketton-Cremer, Norfolk, pp. 182–4.
CRO, Quarter Sessions Order Book, fos 81 r, 85r; Kent Archives Office, Q/SO WI; Morrill, Cheshire, p. 60; East Devon RO, Quarter Sessions Order Book, 1640–51; HMC, Portland MSS, vol. III, p. 106; HMC, Various MSS, vol i, p. 109; Essex RO, Q/SR 318–9; B. C. Redwood, Quarter Sessions Order Book, 1642–1649, Sussex Record Society, LIV (1954) pp. 18–30; J. S. Furley, Quarter Sessions Government in Hampshire (1937) p. 81.
Essex RO, Q/SBa 2/49; Holmes, East Anglia, pp. 69–88.
HMC, 12th Report, appendix, pt. viii (Le Fleming MSS) p. 19.
Bellum Civile: Sir Ralph Hopton’s Campaign in the West, ed. C. E. H. Chadwyck-Healey (Somerset Record Society, xviii, 1902) pp. 20–1.
BL E86(3): Special Passages, 17–24 Jan. 1643; HMC, Portland MSS, vol. iii, p. 106.
Phillips, Ottley Papers, pp. 269–73.
Chadwyck-Healey, Bellum Civile, pp. 21–2; Fletcher, County Community, pp. 260–1; William Salt Library, Stafford, Salt MSS 341/2; Pennington, ‘County and Country’, 16–17; Birmingham Reference Library, Hanley Court MSS, Box 5, no. 398325.
Wedgwood, The King’s War (1958) p. 125; Phillips, ‘Royalist North’, xiv (1978) 172; HMC, 5th Report, p. 69.
HMC, Portland MSS, vol. iii, p. 104; Hutton, ‘Royalist War Effort’, p. 74.
Sir G. Sitwell, Letters of the Sitwells and Sacheverells (1900) vol. i, pp. 19–20;GRO, D2510/11.
BL E244 (18): The Declaration of the Earl of Cumberland.
CJ, vol. ii, p. 1004; Holmes, East Anglia, p. 54; HMC, 12th Report, appendix, pt. vii, p. 19.
Nottinghamshire RO, DD 294/1 (photocopies of documents owned by Mr R. I. Duncan).
Fletcher, Outbreak, pp. 369–406.
Everitt, Suffolk and the Great Rebellion 1640–1660 (Suffolk Records Society, ii, 1960) 38–9; Holmes, East Anglia, p. 52.
Lancashire Civil War Tracts, ed. G. Omerod (Chetham Society, 11, 1844) 66–7; BL E83(32): The Requests of the Grand Jury of Oxfordshire.
BL 669 fo. 5(132): The Agreement of the Grand Jury of Worcestershire; HMC, Various Manuscripts, vol. 1, p. 321; Hutton, ‘Royalist War Effort’, pp. 86–8; Pennington and Roots, Committee at Stafford, p. 341.
Harrison, ‘Royalist Organisation in Gloucestershire and Bristol’, unpublished M.A. thesis, Manchester (1961) pp. 64–73; Chadwyck-Healey, Bellum Civile, p. 36.
E.g. Northamptonshire RO, Isham MSS 246: Committee at Northampton to colonels and captains, 2 May 1643.
HMC, 7th Report, p. 442.
Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, ed. C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait vol. 1, pp. 46–137.
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© 1982 Robert Ashton, Anthony Fletcher, Roger Howell, Ronald Hutton, Mark Kishlansky, John Morrill, Donald Pennington, Richard Tuck
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Fletcher, A. (1982). The Coming of War. In: Morrill, J. (eds) Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649. Problems in Focus Series. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16911-5_2
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