The Good Old Cause

English Revolution of 1640-1660

Edmund Dell, Christopher Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781138179462
• eBook ISBN: 9781136242113
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book examines the English revolution from 1640-1660, with particualr attenion to the social structure of England at the time.

Part One

Social Classes Before 1640

Freeholders and tradesmen are the strength of religion and civility in the land; and gentlemen and beggars and servile tenants are the strength of iniquity.

The Reverend Richard Baxter.

1. The Landed Class

Landowners naturally come first in any description of the class structure of England in the two generations before 1640. Land was the source of political power and social prestige. Through the manor court and as J.Ps., landowners controlled local justice and administration; the central government had difficulty in enforcing its will when it ran counter to the desires of the gentry (cf. No. 40). In extract a) Bacon (later James Ps Lord Chancellor) is defending Elizabeth’s government from the charge of neglecting the interests of the higher nobility. The five following extracts are from Sir Thomas Wilson’s State of England, written in 1600 or 1601 by a man on the fringe of government service who had access to reasonably good information. As the younger son of a gentleman, he was a member of a social group which, as appears from e), was an element of unrest in the life of his time. Note his evidence of the growing dependence of landowners on court favour and the plunder of the Church (b) andf; cf. No. 34). Since the Reformation these two sources of pickings had steadily increased in importance. (See L. Stone, “The Anatomy of the Elizabethan Aristocracy,” Economic History Review, 1948.)

a) Francis Bacon, Certain Observations upon a Libel (Letters and Life, by J. Spedding, I, pp. 172–3); b) Wilson,

p. 22; c) p. 23; d) pp. 23–4; e) p. 24;f) pp. 22–3, 38.

a) The Nobility, 1592

THERE have been in ages past noblemen … both of greater possessions and of greater commandment and sway than any are at this day. One reason why the possessions are less I conceive to be because certain sumptuous veins and humours of expense—as apparel, gaming, maintaining of a kind of followers and the like— do reign more than they did in times past. Another reason is because noblemen nowadays do deal better with their younger sons than they were accustomed to do heretofore, whereby the principal house receiveth many abatements. Touching the commandment, which is not indeed so great as it hath been, I take it rather to be a commendation of the time than otherwise. For men were wont factiously to depend upon noblemen; where of ensued many partialities and divisions, besides much interruption of justice, while the great ones did seek to bear out those that did depend upon them; so as the kings of this realm, finding long since that kind of commandment in noblemen unsafe unto their crown and inconvenient unto their people, thought meet to restrain the same by provision of laws; whereupon grew the statute of retainers; so as men now depend upon the prince and the laws and upon no other. A matter which hath also a congruity with the nature of the time; as may be seen in other countries, namely in Spain, where their grandees are nothing so potent and so absolute as they have been in times past. But otherwise it may be truly affirmed that the rights and pre-eminences of the nobility were never more duly and exactly preserved unto them than they have been in [Elizabeth’s] times; the precedence of knights given to the younger sons of barons; no subpoenas awarded against the nobility out of the chancery, but letters; no answer upon oath, but honour; besides a number of other privileges in Parliament, court and country. So likewise for the countenance which they receive of her Majesty and the state in lieutenancies, commissions, offices and the like, there was never a more honourable and careful regard had of the nobility … [even though] a few of them by immoderate expense are decayed.

b) The State of the Nobility

I find great alterations almost every year, so mutable are worldly things and worldly men’s affairs; as namely the Earl of Oxford, who in the year 1575 was rated at £12,000 a year sterling, within two [years] following was vanished and no name of him found [in the taxation books], having in that time prodigally spent and consumed all, even to the selling of the stones, timber and lead of his castles and houses; and yet he liveth and hath the first place amongst Earls. But the Queen is his gracious mistress and gives him maintenance for his nobility’s sake … out of the bishopric of Ely, which since his decay could never see other bishop. Another, the Earl of Arundel, about the same time was reckoned not much inferior to him in state, and before him in dignity; and in one six months all was confiscated to the Queen for treason. The other Earls, some daily decay, some increase, according to the course of the world; but that which I have noted by perusing many of the said books [of taxation] … is that still the total sum groweth much to one reckoning, and that is to £100,000 rent yearly, accounting them all in gross. … If a man would proportion this amongst nineteen Earls and a Marquis it would be no great matter, to every one £5,000 rent, but as some exceed that much, so many come short of it.

The thirty-nine Barons and two Viscounts do not much exceed that sum: their revenue is reckoned together to amount to £120,000 yearly.

c) The State and Number of Knights

There are accounted to be in England about the number of five hundred knights…. These for the most part are men for living betwixt £1,000 and £2,000 yearly, and many of them equal the best barons and come not much behind many earls … [being] thought to be able to dispend yearly betwixt £5,000 and £7,000 of good land.

d) The Number and State of Gentlemen

Those which we call Esquires are gentlemen whose ancestors are or have been knights, or else they are the heirs and eldest of their houses and of some competent quantity of revenue fit to be called to office and authority in their county…. Of these there are esteemed to be in England, as I have seen by the book of musters of every several shire, to the number of 16,000 or thereabout; … these are men in living betwixt £1,000 and £500 rent. Especially about London and the counties adjoining, where their lands are set to the highest [i.e. leased at rack rents], he is not counted of any great reckoning unless he be betwixt 1,000 marks [£666 135-. 4d.] or £1,000; but northward and far off a gentleman of good reputation may be content with £300 or £400 yearly. These are the elder brothers.

e) The State of Great Younger Brethren

I cannot speak of the number of younger brothers, albeit I be one of the number myself; but for their estate there is no man hath better cause to know it, nor less cause to praise it. Their state is of all stations for gentlemen most miserable, for if our fathers possess £1,000 or £2,000 yearly at his death he cannot give a foot of land to his younger children in inheritance, unless it be by lease for twenty-one years or for three lives … or else be purchased by himself and not descended. Then he may demise as much as he thinks good to his younger children, but such a fever hectic hath custom brought in and inured amongst fathers, and such fond desire they have to leave a great show of the stock of their house, though the branches be withered, that they will not do it, but my elder brother forsooth must be my master. He must have all…. This I must confess doth us good some ways, for it makes us industrious to apply ourselves to letters or to arms, whereby many times we become my master elder brother’s masters, or at least their betters in honour and reputation; while he lives at home like a [dolt] and knows the sound of no other bell but his own.

f) The State of the Clergy

The Bishops’ revenues amount to about £22,500 yearly altogether…. The Deans’ … commodities in letting the church lands and bestowing the places and offices is very great, otherwise their revenue is not much; … their whole revenue accounted through England amounted to the sum of £4,500 yearly or thereabouts.

But this must be understood, that the state of the clergy is not altogether so bare as may perhaps be conjectured by the smallness of their revenue, for that they never raise nor rack their rents nor put out tenants as the noblemen and gentlemen do to the uttermost penny; but do let their lands as they were let 100 years since, reserving to themselves and their successors some commodities besides the bare rent, as corn, muttons, beef, poultry or such like; but to say the truth their wings are well clipped of late by courtiers and noblemen, and some quite cut away, both feather, flesh and bone….

[Royal policy aimed at] the keeping low of the clergy from being over rich, for that order of men have most damnified [i.e. caused loss to] England by their profuse spending upon their pleasures, and upon idle serving men and other moth-worms which depended upon them and ate the fat of the land and were no way profitable; for it is not long since you should not ride nor go through country or town but you should meet such troops of these priests’ retinue as exceeded 100 or 200 of these caterpillars, neither fit for war nor other service, attending upon this pontifical crew, furnished and appointed in the best manner that might be; but since their wings were clipped shorter they [i.e. we] hold opinion that England hath flourished more.

2. Feudal Sources of Revenue

These extracts are from ’The Lives of the Berkeleys, written by John Smyth, steward to the family, about 1620. (For the management of the Berkeley estates, see No. 4.) The sources of revenue of a great landed family were still mediaeval; a new grant of rights in traditional feudal form could still be obtained from the Crown—for a price (b).

a) J. Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys (1883–5), II, p. 333; b) ibid., II, pp. 435–7.

a) Feudal Dues

NOT long after [1611–12] this lord [Berkeley] (… partly to pursue the precedents of his ancestors …) had a benevolence from all his tenants, whethe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Some Important Dates
• Introduction
• Part One: Social Classes Before 1640
• Part Two: Economic Life Before 1640
• Part Three: The State Machine Before 1640
• Part Four: Church and State Before 1640
• Part Five: The International Situation
• Part Six: The Storm Breaks
• Part Seven: The Civil War
• Part Eight: The Sects and Democracy
• Part Nine: The Levellers
• Part Ten: Army Democracy
• Part Eleven: The End of the Old Order
• Part Twelve: The Diggers
• Part Thirteen: The Defeat of the Levellers
• Part Fourteen: Economic Problems of the Revolution
• Part Fifteen: Growing Conservatism
• Part Sixteen: The Restoration and After
• Acknowledgements
• Index of Persons
• Subject Index