North-East England, 1569-1625: Governance, Culture and Identity (Regions and Regionalism in History)

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625 GOVERNANCE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY

This study of England’s north-eastern parts examines counties Durham and Northumberland as well as Newcastle-upon-Tyne, with its central theme the extent to which the county gentry and urban elites possessed a sense of regional identity. It concentrates on these elites’ social, political, religious and cultural connections which extended beyond the purely administrative jurisdictions of the county or town. By concentrating on a series of seismic changes in the area – the demise of its great regional magnates, the rapid upsurge of the coal industry and the union of the crowns – it offers a distinctive chronological coverage, from the latter half of the sixteenth century through to the early seventeenth century. Old stereotypes of the north-eastern landed elites as isolated and backward are overturned while their response to state formation reveals their political sophistication. Traditional views of the religious conservatism of the north-eastern parts are reassessed to demonstrate its multi-faceted complexion. And contrasting cultural patterns are analysed, through ballad literature, the cult of St Cuthbert and increasing exposure to metropolitan ‘civility’, to reveal a series of sub-regions within the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. DR DIANA NEWTON is Lecturer in History at the University of Teesside.

Regions and Regionalism in History ISSN 1742–8254 This series, published in association with the AHRB Centre for North-East England History (NEEHI), aims to reflect and encourage the increasing academic and popular interest in regions and regionalism in historical perspective. It also seeks to explore the complex historical antecedents of regionalism as it appears in a wide range of international contexts. Series Editor Bill Lancaster, University of Northumbria Editorial Board Dr Richard C. Allen, University of Newcastle Dr Barry Doyle, University of Teesside Bill Lancaster, University of Northumbria Bill Purdue, Open University Professor David Rollason, University of Durham Dr Peter Rushton, University of Sunderland Proposals for future volumes may be sent to the following address: AHRB Centre for North-East England History 5th Floor Bolbec Hall Westgate Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 1SE Already Published: Volume I: The Durham Liber Vitae and its Context, edited by David Rollason, A. J. Piper, Margaret Harvey and Lynda Rollason, 2004 Volume II: Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments, edited by Glyndwr Williams, 2004 Volume III: North-East England in the Later Middle Ages, edited by Christian D. Liddy and R. H. Britnell, 2005 Volume IV: North East England, 1850–1914: The Dynamics of a MaritimeIndustrial Region, Graeme J. Milne, 2006

North-East England, 1569–1625 Governance, Culture and Identity

Diana Newton

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Diana Newton 2006 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Diana Newton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2006 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

ISBN 1 84383 254 2 A CIP catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Typeset by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton Printed in Great Britain by Cambridge University Press

Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations

vii viii

1

Introduction: questions of regional identity

2

Elites of and in north-eastern England

22

3

The governance and governors of north-eastern England

44

4

North-east elites and the crisis of border government

66

5

Civil society in north-eastern England

94

6

Religious identities

117

7

Cultural identities

143

8

Conclusion: regional identity and the elites of north-eastern England

163

Appendix: Elites of and in the north-eastern counties of England Bibliography Index

v

1

175 181 201

Acknowledgements I am delighted to acknowledge all the help and support I have had in writing this book. First and foremost, in his capacity as director and mentor, I am most grateful to Tony Pollard. For reading and commenting all along the way on various drafts I would like to thank Keith Wrightson, Tony Goodman, Charles Phythian-Adams, Rab Houston, Pete Rushton, Adrian Green, Maureen Meikle and Helen Berry, as well as David Rollason for keeping me up to the mark. I am indebted to the AHRC Centre for North-East England History for providing the material support and framework within which the book was conceived and written. Staff at the various record offices and libraries have been very helpful, especially Margaret MacCollum in the Special Collections Library at the University of Durham. My fellow researchers in pursuit of a North-East England identity over the longue durée, Rob Lee, Natasha Vall, Christian Liddy, Graham Milne and John Burnett, have provided both intellectual and social pabulum, for which I am very grateful. Thanks, too, to Neil Purvis for the map. In addition, I should also like to express my warm appreciation to Sandra and Tony Pollard and Carolyn and Alan Kitching for their good cheer and hospitality. Finally, my greatest debt, as ever, is to my husband, Clive.

vii

Abbreviations AA Alumni Cantab

Alumni Oxon APC BL Bodl. Lib. Camden’s Britannia

CBP CJ CRO CSPD

DCL DRO EHR HMC HJ Holinshead, Chronicles

Archaeologia Aeliana Alumni Cantab rigienses: a biographical list of all known students, graduates and holders of office at the University of Cambridge, from the earliest times to 1900, Part I, to 1751, ed. John Venn, Cambridge 1922–27 Alumni Oxon iensis, Being the matriculation register of the University, 1500–1714, ed. Joseph Foster, Oxford, 1891–2 Acts of the privy council of England, London 1890–1964 British Library, London Bodleian Library, Oxford William Camden, Britain, or a chorographicall account of the most flourishing kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland, trans., Philemon Holland, London 1610 Calendar of letters and papers relating to the affairs of the borders of England and Scotland, ed. Joseph Bain, Edinburgh, 1894–6 Journals of the House of Commons, 1547–1714, London 1742 Cumbria record office Calendar of state papers, domestic series, of the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth I and James I, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green and others, London 1856–1947 Dean and Chapter Library, Durham Durham record office English Historical Review Historical Manuscripts Commission The Historical Journal Holinshead, Raphael, William Harrison, and others, The chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland . . . now newlie augmented and continued . . . to the yeare 1586 . . . by John Hooker, London 1596 viii

ABBREVIATIONS

LP NH NRO P&P PGL SH SS TRHS

Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer and others, 1862–1910 Northern History Northumberland record office Past and Present Palace Green Library, University of Durham Social History Surtees Society Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

ix

North-eastern England in the late sixteenth century

1

Introduction: questions of regional identity In the final, long, drawn out days of Elizabeth I’s life, Sir John Carey, the deputy governor of the garrison town of Berwick, appealed urgently to Sir Robert Cecil, the queen’s principal secretary. ‘What should I do here,’ he demanded, ‘not knowing how or for whom to keep this place, being only in the devil’s mouth, a place that will be first assailed, and I not being instructed what course to hold.’1 These were perilous times. With no heir to the English throne formally nominated, he was terrified that he would be an early victim should the Scottish king James VI attempt to take England by force on the death of the aged and ailing queen. He was not alone in his unease, for King James himself was conscious that his forces should be in readiness should he need to defend his interest, while rumours were circulating throughout Europe. 2 Sir John, not a native Northumbrian, was also articulating contemporary estimations about the character of north-east England, as remote from central government, ignorant, fiendish, volatile and extremely vulnerable. In the event King James’s entry into England was accomplished remarkably smoothly. It was Sir John Carey’s younger brother, Sir Robert, who carried the news of Elizabeth’s death (on 24 March 1603) from London to James VI – in a dramatic ride taking less than three days. He took the opportunity to proclaim the new king at Morpeth and Alnwick before calling in on his brother at Berwick who promptly gathered the garrison, mayor, aldermen and burgesses together to hear his ‘short and pithie Oration’ proclaiming the new king of England. One of James’s first acts was to secure Berwick through the agency of the bishop of Holyroodhouse, it being ‘the gate that opened into all his dominions’. James himself progressed into Berwick on 6 April. As he approached, he was met by such a ‘peale of ordinance’ that it set ‘the houses and towers staggering’ while the consequent smoke engulfed the entire town completely obliterating it from view. But, just ‘as all darknesse flyes before the face of the sunne, so did these clouds of smoake and gunpowder vanish at his gracious approach’.3 The

1

HMC, Marquis of Salisbury manuscripts, London 1883–1926, xii, 677. Correspondence of James VI of Scotland with Sir Robert Cecil and others in England, ed. John Bruce (Camden lxxviii, 1861), 49; CSPD, 1601–1603, 298–300. 3 This account is based on The True Narration of the Entertainment of his Royal Majestie, from the time of his Departure from Edenbrough, till his Receiving at London: with all, or the most speciall Occurences, first published in London in 1603, later printed in The progresses, 2

1

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

inference may perhaps be drawn that, from a southern perspective, King James would bring enlightenment to a corner of England that was all too capable of plunging itself into darkness and chaos. Upon leaving the bounds of Berwick, James formally entered the realm of England, where he was received by the sheriff of Northumberland. As he crossed the border he dismounted, figuratively, from the unruly horse he had been riding for nearly all his life, as king of Scotland, to try out the paces of his new ‘touardlie rydding horse’ that was England.4 The momentous introduction took place amid ‘multitudes’ of Scottish, French and English noblemen and gentlemen, with their wives, as well as churchmen, soldiers, townspeople and others, where he was welcomed rapturously. Indeed, he spent two weeks travelling through Northumberland and Durham, being lavishly entertained and feted along the way. James declared himself delighted with everything he encountered and conferred many long-overdue knighthoods upon the gentry – a course of action designed, in part, to ensure the loyalty of the localities. But, as this became the pattern for his journey south (although the hospitality became increasingly opulent), it is unlikely that the North East distinguished itself in any way. Moreover, James had written to his English privy council from Berwick, assuring them that it was his intention ‘to hasten towards you as much as conveniently we may’, notwithstanding his obligations to show himself to his new subjects.5 His mind was not bent on making observations about the country as he rode through it. But, if the North East of England appeared to leave little impression on the new king, in one very significant respect his accession would impact very markedly on it. For the outlook of the North East was poised to alter fundamentally as it became the focus of his cherished dream of completely dissolving the border between England and Scotland. It was his desire that it would be transformed from an international border to a heartland. As such, it would no longer be a periphery: it would be the core.

The historiography and theory of regional identity The notion of a specific north-eastern regional or local identity in the early modern period has been current for some time. Indeed, it has been claimed by John Tomaney that the North East ‘has had a marked political identity for

processions, and magnificent festivities of king James the first, ed. John Nichols, London 1828, 53ff. 4 The analogy was James’s own, used in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil. Bruce, Correspondence, 31. 5 Bodl. Lib. MS Ashmole, no. 1729, fo. 34. This was just one of a stream of letters he wrote to his councillors, throughout his journey, mostly on matters pertaining to the government of the realm. 2

INTRODUCTION

centuries’, while Linda Colley concluded that in ‘much of the North Country, intense localism remained the norm, at least until the coming of the railways’.6 In 1974, Mervyn James explained the Pilgrimage of Grace of 1536 by suggesting that ‘the need to defend a regional identity lay in part behind the religious aspects of the Rising’.7 And, certainly, the Durham contingent marched behind the banner of St Cuthbert throughout their involvement in the venture. The authorities clearly felt that the regional cult of St Cuthbert had secured support for the rising in Durham, for the defeat of the Pilgrimage, in 1537, was marked by the defacement of the saint’s shrine, three years before dissolution of the monastery. At the same time that James was writing, S.J. Watts was dealing with the hypothesis that notions of regional distinction were already being eroded by the late sixteenth century – assuming, therefore, that they already existed. Watts came to the conclusion that ‘the memory of these earlier regional differences still contributed to men’s mental image or perception of Northumberland’.8 Both James and Watts introduced two important issues regarding north-eastern regional identity (or identities) in the early modern period: that is, the real and the imagined. Neither, however, discussed what constituted ideas of regional distinctiveness in the period covered by this book. Nor did they determine whether such identities were defined from within or without. Since James and Watts there has been a considerable amount written about regional identity in general and in the early modern period. This has grown out of regional studies which, in turn, developed from local (or localist) studies. Local history has been the subject of study since the antiquarian scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries devoted considerable time and effort to gathering and collating, sometimes vast, quantities of documentary material.9 In the same way, local historians produced, often meticulously researched, studies of single communities. But, as these antiquarians and local historians rarely subjected their material to deep and sustained analysis or 6

John Tomaney, ‘In search of English regionalism: the case of north-east England’, Scottish Affairs, xxviii (1999), 63–79 (my italics); Linda Colley, Britons: forging the nation 1707–1837, Yale 1992, 372, although she offers no evidence. 7 Mervyn James, Family, lineage and civil society. A study of society, politics, and mentality in the Durham region, 1500–1640, Oxford 1974, 47. More recent studies of the rising are: Michael Bush, The pilgrimage of grace: a study of the rebel armies of October 1536, Manchester 1996; R.W. Hoyle, The pilgrimage of grace and the politics of the 1530s, Oxford 2001. 8 S.J. Watts with Susan Watts, From border to middle shire: Northumberland, 1586–1625, Leicester 1975, 13. 9 For the North East, see, for instance, William Hutchinson, A view of Northumberland with an excursion to the abbey of Mailross in Scotland, Newcastle 1778; Hutchinson, The history and antiquities of the County Palatine, of Durham, Newcastle 1785–1794. For a general discussion, see Rosemary Sweet, Antiquaries: the discovery of the past in eighteenth-century Britain, London 2004, and her ‘“Truly historical ground?”: antiquarianism in the north in the long eighteenth century’, in Robert Colls and Bill Lancaster (eds), A new history of Northumbria, Chichester forthcoming. 3

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

scrutiny, or made comparisons across space, such collections or investigations tended to be very limited in their value, beyond affording accumulated data. And it has been argued that because such studies did not consider sequences of events or patterns of behaviour across a varied area, they could not draw conclusions about the territory in which those events took place.10 In 1978, the Conference of Regional and Local Historians (CORAL) was set up with its philosophy to ‘counter parochialism in local studies, to promote a consideration of theoretical issues, and to encourage through the local focus the development of history in the round’. Designed to produce new rigour in amateur historians it also encouraged the kind of professional approach adopted, most notably, by the English Local History Department at the University of Leicester, but also at Reading and Hull, where academic local history had burgeoned for many decades.11 At the same time, the question of regional identity began to receive serious consideration. Almost immediately, historians encountered the problem of how, precisely, to define the concept of the ‘region’, given the many versions and interpretations of the term that can be offered. The question is still some way from a definitive resolution, if it ever could, or should, be immutably resolved. Indeed, the point has been made that it is precisely this ambiguity and imprecision that makes the term so attractive.12 Much attention has been paid to the subject in recent decades.13 But Ted Royle, former Chair of CORAL, made one suggestion that seems particularly helpful for the purposes of this work. He recommended that the plethora of administrative, political and geographical regions (and so forth), that vary and change over time, might best be ‘regarded more loosely as zones of human activity’.14 In this way, the difficulties of overlapping regions – illustrated, for example, by the fact that administrative areas often terminate where geological regions continue – could be lessened. More importantly, it underlined the crucial importance of people, with their concerns and preoccupations, for defining what is a ‘region’. Royle took this argument further, citing Sidney Pollard, who concluded that ‘physical features might define a potential region and help shape human activity, but ultimately it is what human beings make of that environment which shapes the nature of the region’.15 But valuable as these conclusions undoubtedly are 10 This point has been made at greater length by J.D. Marshall in his The tyranny of the discrete: a discussion of the problems of local history in England, Aldershot 1997, 81. 11 Beginning, for example, with the work of G.H. Tupling from the 1920s and continuing with that of W.G. Hoskins and R.H. Hilton from the 1950s and 1960s. 12 Tom Scott, Regional identity and economic change, the upper Rhine, 1450–1600, Oxford 1997, 1. 13 The AHRB centre for NEEHI’s annual reporting conference held in June 2003 at the University of Durham was devoted entirely to addressing questions of regionalism in history. 14 Ted Royle, ‘Introduction: regions and identities’, in Royle (ed.), Issues of regional identity; in honour of John Marshall, Manchester 1998, 2. 15 Royle, ‘Regions and identities’, 4; and see, for example, David Rollinson, The local origins of modern society: Gloucestershire, 1500–1800, London 1992.

4

INTRODUCTION

in perceiving regions in terms of ‘environmental determinism’ – which selfevident two-way process, of course, must be acknowledged – uncovering a selfconscious sense of identity remains problematic. Establishing the nature of physical space – whether political, administrative, territorial, geographical, or environmental – in itself, and by whatever means, cannot give a complete answer to the questions to be addressed in this book. Indeed, the observation that ‘a cardinal task for the local historian is not that of imposing idealized or preconceived localities on historical material, but of attempting to discover how contemporaries saw their own regional social grouping’ remains pertinent.16 The task is rendered more challenging by the fact that ‘sentiments of locational belonging, never define themselves; they can only be understood specifically as long-term reflections of past and present societies inhabiting particular contexts’.17 That has not deterred generations of scholars, from across the disciplines, from attempting to meet that challenge. Regional consciousness has been an area of study by historical geographers and sociologists since at least the 1930s, with the concept of ‘regionalism’ as both a political movement and geographic tool emerging in the half-century before that. The notion of ‘the region’ has had a much longer currency in European thought since the end of the eighteenth century.18 By 1978, R.A. Butlin could emphatically conclude that ‘the idea of human activity and its results has become inseparable from the idea of the region’. Even then, John Fraser Hart was still lamenting that ‘some geographers forget that the purpose of regional geography is to understand areas, not draw lines around them’.19 Coming from a slightly different direction, and reflecting the concerns of relatively recent movements for regional devolution, Alan Baker and Derek Gregory offered the suggestion that ‘ “regionalism” might in some circumstances have interposed itself as a potent political force between “localism” and “nationalism” in “the increasing spatial disintegration of society”: as the sense of place was transformed from a local to a national consciousness’. 20 Yet, it has since been averred that English regions are deeply problematic intermediaries between national and local. In comparison with continental

16

J.D. Marshall, The tyranny of the discrete, 4. Charles Phythian-Adams, ‘Differentiating provincial societies in English history: spatial contexts and cultural processes’, Regions and Regionalism in History, International Colloquium, AHRB centre for NEEHI, September 2004. 18 F.W. Morgan, ‘Three aspects of regional consciousness’, Sociological Review, xxxi (1939), 68–88, which was a statement of the subject to date. 19 R.A. Butlin, ‘Regions in England and Wales c1600–1914’, in R.A. Dodgshon and R.A. Butlin (eds), A historical geography of England and Wales, London 1978; J.F. Hart,’The highest form of the geographer’s art’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, lxxii (1982), 8. 20 Alan R.H. Baker and Derek Gregory, ‘Some terrae incognitae in historical geography: an exploratory discussion’, in Baker and Gregory (eds), Explorations in historical geography, Cambridge 1984. 17

5

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

European states with their inherited political sub-units, it is difficult to define an English region.21 As the legatee of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, the north-eastern parts of England might be the exception to prove the rule. In any case, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive: regional and national associations and identities can coexist differently and independently. The subject, clearly, is capable of still deeper investigation. New vigour was brought to the subject by examining the dichotomy between ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ identities. It has been argued that the criteria for defining regions ‘reflect the accumulated weight of history and tradition, so that regions may be seen as the product both of reality (or nature) and of imagination (or human agency)’.22 The concept of ‘imagined communities’ was first articulated by Benedict Anderson in 1983 in his reflections upon the growth of nationalism. He arrived at this by considering the hypothesis that ‘a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community consider themselves to form a nation’, and then translating ‘consider themselves’ as ‘imagine themselves’.23 Anthony Cohen’s study of a small Shetland island community argues that in order for any community to defend its cultural integrity it must embrace new, symbolic fortifications as the ‘means whereby communities contrive and preserve a sense of collective self as a counterpunch to the subversion or penetration of their structural boundaries which had previously held at bay external cultural influences’.24 Adopting Anderson’s technique and translating ‘communities’ as ‘identities’ opens up the possibility of applying this approach to the question of regional identities. Anderson’s approach has been further developed and refined by Tony Nicholson. Although his perspective is community and local identity in the Cleveland area from the 1830s and 1840s onwards, his analyses are of relevance to this work. He has re-examined a number of basic assumptions, including the assertion that local communities and regional identities were made in the pre-modern world, and that they were under threat from the forces of modernity.25 His method of seeking out communal and local identities, however, relied not so much upon studying physical space – that is, the actual landscape or even socio-economic structures – instead, he concentrated upon what he terms ‘social space’. It is here, he argued, that ‘the social interchange of ideas and cultural meanings takes place, and where . . . the key business of 21

Celia Applegate, ‘A Europe of regions: reflections on the historiography of sub-national places in modern times’, American Historical Review, civ (1999), 1157–82. 22 Peter Ainsworth and Tom Scott (eds), ‘Introduction’, Regions and landscapes, reality and imagination in late medieval and early modern Europe, Oxford 2000, 19. 23 Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, London 1983, revised 1991, 6; Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and states. An enquiry into the origins of nations and the politics of nationalism, Colorado 1977, 5. 24 Anthony P. Cohen, Whalsay, symbol, segment and boundary in a Shetland island community, Manchester 1987, 19 (his italics). 25 Tony Nicholson, unpublished conference paper given to the ‘Northern Landscapes’ conference at the University of Northumbria, 2001. 6

INTRODUCTION

shaping and breaking identities . . . really happens’.26 This appears to go a stage further than Charles Phythian-Adams’s ‘cultural provinces’ or ‘unambiguously definable area[s]’ with which ‘may be associated a set of distinguishable cultural traits’. However, because the crucial distinction for these ‘container[s] for human activity’ is that they are bounded ‘in more or less coincidental physical and cultural terms’27 they remain firmly located in the physical space in a way that Nicholson’s ‘social spaces’ are not. In pressing his argument, Nicholson observed that rather than the forces of modernity destroying regional identities, they ‘excite and sharpen them’ through ‘a daily torrent of information about people and places beyond their own immediate . . . experience, they heighten and dramatise the contours of a new and expanding landscape’.28 Pat Hudson also has noted that ‘as outside influences get stronger regional and local character and differences tend to be transformed’ and, crucially, that ‘they are as likely to be reinforced as reduced’.29 A central plank of Nicholson’s thesis is that a conscious sense of distinctiveness is only activated by encounters with ‘others’ and that for most of the time awareness of identity is latent. In a sense this reflects Royle’s point, that ‘identity is often easier to recognise by its absence than for its presence. Even if they are not sure what they have in common with one another, human groups can define themselves in their opposition to those who are not like themselves.’30 This raises questions about whether identity is about what is shared or what is contested. An essential aspect of Phythian-Adams’s ‘cultural provinces’ is their ‘shared susceptibility to the same outside influences’.31Taken further, this ‘encounter theory’ can not only reveal definitions of identity through difference from and/or opposition to ‘others’, in certain circumstances it can also intensify a sense of togetherness, or commonality. Accordingly, Sahlins has argued that no single model of ‘social belonging’ is entirely applicable to any given community.32 Above all, then, senses of distinctiveness generally are kaleidoscopic in their nature, in that they change 26

Nicholson, unpublished paper. Charles Phythian-Adams (ed.), Societies, cultures and kinship, cultural provinces and English local history, Leicester 1993. 28 Nicholson, unpublished paper. 29 Pat Hudson, ‘Regional and local history: globalisation, postmodernism and the future’, Journal of Local and Regional Studies, 1999, 9. 30 Royle, ‘Regions and identities’, 10; Colley made a similar point in Britons: forging the nation, 5–6. She cited Peter Sahlins’s claim that national identity, ‘like ethnic or communal identity, is contingent and relational: it is defined by the social or territorial boundaries to distinguish the collective self and its implicit negation the other’, in his Boundaries: the making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1981, 271. Colley developed this in ‘Britishness and Otherness: an argument’, Journal of British Studies, xxxi (1992), 309–29. 31 Phythian-Adams, ‘Introduction; an agenda for English local history’, in Phythian-Adams, Societies, cultures and kinship, 9. 32 Although his work focuses on the Catalin borderland he stresses that the point applies throughout European society. Sahlins, Boundaries, 110-13. 27

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NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

and modify and reconstitute themselves according to different circumstances and encounters. The problems generated by the fact that ‘spatial structures are compounded of many wavelengths, some of which do and some of which do not mesh together’ are multiplied when trying to get to grips with abstract, social spaces.33 But that is not to say the challenge cannot be met. Identifying and probing these multi-layered and shifting identities adds a greater breadth to the subject for, as Hudson has promised, ‘by studying the interactions of regions we lay bare their individual identity and show their inner workings’.34 This can be extended to include intra-regional interaction. Yet, although this approach can be projected backwards and extended outwards, as regards the early modern period, it has barely been touched upon. The debate about ‘county communities’ has, so far, been conducted in terms that preclude engaging with the subtleties of regional consciousness. Marshall has observed that the relationship of gentry families to given areas of countryside, and even to specific places, calls for the most diligent research, and it cannot be assumed that consciousness of place or territory is most fully represented at the main social meeting points recognized by the regional gentry.35

Perhaps it is most manifest when land ownership is considered. This is only prescriptive and it fails to differentiate between physical and social space, but it does recognize the issues to be addressed by this book. It is some time since the ‘county community’ debate was current, which tended to concentrate upon the degree of interaction between the localities and the centre and, in particular, on the inherent conservatism and insularity of the regional gentry.36 Clive Holmes’s cogent argument against this view, that when the gentry appeared to be most closely engaged in matters of a purely localized nature – that is, at quarter sessions and assizes – their involvement in the national polity was, in fact, regularly reinforced, is useful. 37 But the matter is more wideranging than that. 33

John Langton, ‘The industrial revolution and the regional geography of England’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, ns ix (1984), 1–50. 34 Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’. 35 Marshall, The tyranny of the discrete, 85. 36 This view was encapsulated in the works of Alan Everitt, The local community and the great rebellion, London 1969, and Change in the province, Leicester 1969; and J.S. Morrill, The revolt of the provinces, London 1976. For the North, in particular, Howard Reinmuth claimed that the northern gentry had little interest in national politics. See ‘Border society in transition’, in Reinmuth (ed.), Early Stuart studies, Minneapolis 1970. However, such conclusions were challenged by Keith Wrightson, who observed that the seventeenth century ‘witnessed the increasing involvement of provincial Englishmen of upper and middling rank in national affairs’. Wrightson, English society 1580–1688, London 1982, 225. 37 Clive Holmes, ‘The county community in Stuart historiography’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds), The English Civil War, London 1997. This chapter is based on a paper first presented in 1977. This has since been developed in Alexander Murdoch, British history 1660–1832: national identity and local culture, Basingstoke 1998. 8

INTRODUCTION

For, as well as the county gentry there were also urban oligarchies; and both were operating at a number of levels. Local or regional considerations were not necessarily subsumed by national concerns. On occasion the national interest would coincide with the regional, on others the two might be in conflict, and sometimes different interest groups within the region might be at odds with each other, based on the ‘local, communal and oppositional cultures’ identified by Hudson.38 At the same time, Joan Kent, in her study of parish (rather than county) officers in state formation, showed how they too sometimes experienced difficulties in juggling conflicting pressures and demands.39 Steve Hindle’s work on the role of the relatively humble in governing late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England concluded that the crucial determinant of the success of social policy lay not so much with county benches, and even less with the Privy Council, but with those jurymen and parish officers who were called upon both to transmit the impulse for order and to secure the co-operation of the wider communities in which they lived.40

Similarly, D.H. Sacks uncovered a political world in 1630s Bristol where members of the municipal corporations were ‘simultaneously citizens and crown servants, city fathers and the legitimate agents of the state in their community, the one role reinforcing the other’. This, in turn, parallels Howell’s treatment of Newcastle.41 Mike Braddick argues that, even when engaged in the potentially divisive business of collecting taxes, ‘there was no such thing as a single local community, but a compound of sectional interests, sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting, which coalesced in certain ways around certain issues’.42 The ‘county community’, therefore, can no longer be the basis for defining identities at whatever level.43 What does remain clear is that people adopt or embrace different identities, at different times, for different purposes. Accordingly, these ‘kaleidoscopic’ identities must be pursued from a variety of angles and by employing a range of strategies. 38

Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’, 13. Joan R. Kent, ‘The centre and the localities: state formation and parish government in England, circa 1640–1740’, HJ, xxxviii (1995), 363–404. She refers to her earlier work on the village constable between 1580 and 1642. 40 Steve Hindle, The state and social change in early modern England c1550–1640, Basingstoke 2000, 174. 41 D.H. Sacks, ‘The corporate town and the English state: Bristol’s “little businesses” 1625–1641’, P&P, cx (1986), 96; Howell, ‘Newcastle and the Nation: the seventeenth century experience’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th ser., viii, 1980, and reprinted in Jonathan Barry (ed.), The Tudor and Stuart town: a reader in English urban history, 1530–1688, London 1990. 42 M.J. Braddick, Parliamentary taxation in seventeenth century England. Local administration and response, Suffolk 1994, 16. 43 See Braddick, ‘Elite formation and state formation under the Tudor and Stuart crowns, c.1550–1700’, September 2004 colloquium. 39

9

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Butlin’s caveat that ‘the majority of conceptions about regions as articulated by writers in the past reflect the values, beliefs and assumptions of the more literate and powerful’,44 is especially pertinent for the period covered by this book. Helen Jewell, in her study of northern consciousness, acknowledged that most of her conclusions about the North (she never really addressed the North East as a separate region) came from outside observers.45 The dangers inherent in relying on alien observations have been demonstrated by Anne Laurence in her analysis of English judgements on the Irish in the seventeenth century. She found that ‘it is perhaps in their conclusions and assumptions about their own society that their real limitations are evident’.46 Indeed, this is indicative of the way in which ‘[h]istorical analyses of consciousness tend to rely on statements about difference which are actually value judgements, usually those made by a dominant ideology about a subordinate one.’47 In this case that means pronouncements made by southerners about the North (and, especially, its north-eastern parts). The balance needs redressing; for gauging identity cannot feasibly be achieved without listening to the subjects themselves. Keith Wrightson made it plain that the reconstruction of identities is best accomplished from within, and he recommended Phythian-Adams’s approach of working ‘upwards from the ground level where people lived and social structures are “inhabited” to the nature of the wider social organizations’.48 But this cannot form the sole approach, either. Pat Hudson’s question – ‘How did people acquire their identities in their own and others’ eyes?’ – must be given due regard, especially in the light of anthropological conclusions regarding identity, that ‘peripherality and centrality are contingent states’.49 Adopting a methodology that relies exclusively upon evidence from the region and ignores that from elsewhere, therefore, would be as limiting as Jewell’s approach and so any study of regional identity must draw upon a full range of sources. This preliminary survey of concepts concerning regional identities has highlighted a number of important lines of enquiry to be addressed in this book about the north-eastern parts of England, not least the dichotomy between

44 R.A. Butlin, ‘Regions in England and Wales c1600–1914’, in R.A. Dodgshon and R.A. Butlin (eds), A historical geography of England and Wales, 2nd edn, London 1990. 45 Helen Jewell, The north–south divide. The origins of northern consciousness in England, Manchester 1994. 46 Anne Laurence, ‘The cradle to the grave: English observations of Irish social customs in the seventeenth century’, The Seventeenth Century, iii (1988), 83–4. 47 Rab Houston’s review of T.M. Devine, Clanship to crofters’ war. The social transformation of the Scottish highlands, Manchester 1994, in SH, xx (1995), 247–8. 48 Keith Wrightson, ‘Northern identities; the longue durée’, Northern Review, 1995; Phythian-Adams, ‘Introduction; an agenda for English local history’, 5. 49 Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’, 14; Anthony P. Cohen, ‘Peripheral vision: nationalism, national identity and the objective correlative in Scotland’, in Cohen (ed.), Signifying identities. Anthropological perspectives on boundaries and contested values, London 2000, 167.

10

INTRODUCTION

‘real’ and ‘imagined’ identities, and ‘physical’ and ‘social spaces’, as well as the existence of multi-layered and overlapping identities. But the subject is not even as clear-cut as a series of distinct, polarised concepts. For example, it can be argued that it is not until the ‘imagined’ is articulated, most generally through the convention of language, that it becomes evident; and that once it is evident it becomes tangible and consequently turns out to be ‘real’. At the same time, the ‘physical spaces’, conceived administratively and politically, as the counties of Durham and Northumberland, as well as the diocese and bishopric of Durham, and the rapidly expanding city of Newcastle, are overlaid by ‘social or cultural spaces’, where outlooks are determined by socio-economic factors. Thus, the north-eastern counties are marked by a distinct contrast between their upland, or north and western parts, and their lowland, south and eastern portions. These, in turn, are defined by underlying, geological factors.50 What is clear is that much more needs to be done on the question of regional identity in the early modern period through the study of specific regions – howsoever they are to be defined.

Temporal and spatial boundaries in early modern north-eastern England The period covered by this book is bounded by two events, which were of some significance to the North of England, and, particularly, its north-eastern parts. They are the ‘rising of the northern earls’, in 1569, and the death of the first king of England and Scotland, James I and VI, in 1625, whose ambition had been to transform the border counties into the ‘middle shires’. While specifically northern in character, the ‘rising’ also raises issues of divergent religious affiliations within a specific area and is a useful starting point in identifying different groupings that may, or may not, be reflected in other situations. For example, although the North was thereafter perceived as being dangerously disposed towards recusancy, it was the strength of local opposition to the ‘rising’ that was used to defeat it. Further exploration of northern, and especially north-eastern, involvement in the venture, together with patterns of allegiance and especially expressions of confessional sentiments, go some way to exposing those different identities. Moreover, the extent to which its objectives were embraced throughout the north-eastern counties of Durham and Northumberland, and beyond, adds another dimension to the pursuit of an identity, which was ostensibly grounded in the diocese of Durham. The pivotal point of this period was the union of the crowns, when certain key structures and relationships were likely to be altered, fundamentally. Border

50

Phythian-Adams, ‘Differentiating provincial societies in English history’; Brian Roberts, ‘Time and tide, land and territory: embracing Northumbrian spaces’, September 2004 colloquium. 11

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

administration and justice – which had relied heavily on local cooperation to enforce it – was subject to a radical reconstruction. King James’s dream of completely dissolving the border between England and Scotland would impact, to some degree, on the whole of the North. But tracing the course of implementing the scheme, both within and without parliament, and especially input from north-eastern members of parliament, could be expected to reveal considerations of a purely north-eastern nature. The changed nature of the state’s involvement in the region, as a direct consequence of the union of the crowns, may have resulted in the adoption of a north-eastern consciousness, manifest in claims of a north-eastern ‘tradition’ or ‘custom’, as an important strategic concept. How far this was transformed from theory to practice remained to be seen. Such responses were just as likely to reveal variations within the north-eastern counties, at various levels, impelled by differing preoccupations, conceptions and interests. By 1625, it should be possible to assess whether the union of the crowns made any lasting impact on the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. In respect of physical space, this book concentrates predominantly, but not exclusively, on the counties of Durham and Northumberland. Hitherto the two have tended to have been dealt with separately, no doubt because they were in many respects very different. Durham, as a county palatinate, was atypical as regards its political organization, which carried with it clear connotations for fostering feelings of singularity. At the same time, Northumberland, lying on the Scottish border, was subject to quite distinct border laws and responsibilities. But the area was more complicated than that. The series of well-privileged (and not long abolished) liberties, such as Tynedale and Redesdale, in Northumberland appeared to form distinct communities with a social and economic agenda different from and damaging to the rest of the county. The palatinate of Durham had areas of land within Northumberland, such as Bedlington and North Durham, which was composed of Norham and Islandshire. Moreover, the diocese of Durham encompassed both Durham and Northumberland, while Hexham came under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of York.51 Thus, there is ample scope for overlapping identities. There can be no avoiding Phythian-Adams’s strictures on county historians who ‘consistently ignore the fact, [that] shires whose landscape edges “bleed” uninterruptedly across their boundaries into their neighbours’ territories, as most do in more than one direction, can hardly be characterized as unambiguously discrete arenas for past social interaction’.52 By concentrating 51 For the medieval background, see David Rollason’s contribution, and R. King and A.J. Pollard, ‘“Northumbria” in the late middle ages’, in R. Colls and B. Lancaster (eds), A new history of Northumbria, Chichester forthcoming; and A.J. Pollard, ‘Introduction’, in Christian Drummond Liddy and Richard Hugh Britnell (eds), North-east England in the later Middle Ages (Regions and Regionalism in History 3), Woodbridge 2005. 52 Phythian-Adams, ‘Differentiating provincial societies in English history’, September 2004 colloquium.

12

INTRODUCTION

on a relatively short period of time it is possible to contrast these ostensibly different counties and to draw out regional particularities and similarities both within and between them. With regard to boundaries, geographic features can, on the one hand, represent borders and, on the other, heartlands. One person’s core is another’s periphery. The river Tees clearly was a constitutional and ecclesiastical boundary – and thus an obvious demarcation line in any study of Durham and Northumberland. But the rather stark declaration, made some years ago in a travelogue, that ‘the change of atmosphere’ on crossing the Tees ‘is more marked than the sensation of entering Scotland and Wales’53 has been subject to much more subtle analysis. Phythian-Adams began by proposing that ‘when seeking to locate societies on the ground, it is the conjunction of geography with early territorial realities . . . that is of lasting significance’. In particular, he identified the lower reaches of the single river basin as forming the ‘natural’ heartland of a territory,54 thereby returning to the geographic. Later, he found that river-drainage basins were the best spatial configurations to define his distinct cultural provinces for they ‘pre-dispose their inhabitants to look inwards’ as well as having ‘other unifying characteristics that contribute to a broad commonality of culture’.55 Since then, he has identified a number of ‘frontier valleys’ based on three rivers within England, including the river Tees, together with a fourth, the international river Tweed. These ‘frontiers’, which he rather neatly described as ‘provincial punctuation marks on the landscape’, are in direct contrast to those valleys which function as semicontained arenas, for they divide ‘clearly definable groupings of counties or “cultural provinces”’.56 A slightly different approach has been taken by A.J. Pollard in his investigation into the nature of the Tees. By subjecting both trading patterns and social networks in the Tees valley of the later middle ages to close scrutiny he concluded that the Tees was a series of unifying foci: economic, social and political, as well as cultural. Moreover, these foci shifted and changed and evolved over time, making it doubtful whether ‘one can actually make rigid and fixed divisions between regions or map the cultural provinces of England with any degree of certainty’.57 To the north, Steven Ellis regarded the Anglo-Scottish border as a clear political frontier which presented Tudor governments with problems closely comparable to Ireland and the Welsh Marches in terms of its distance from 53

Graham Turner, The north country, London 1967, 299–300. Phythian-Adams, ‘Local history and national history: the quest for the peoples of England’, Rural History, ii (1991), 6. 55 Phythian-Adams, Societies, cultures and kinship, 13. 56 Phythian-Adams, ‘Frontier valleys’, in Joan Thirsk (ed.), The English rural landscape, Oxford 2000, 256, 238. 57 A.J. Pollard, ‘All maks and manders: the local history of the Tees valley in the later middles ages’, Cleveland History, lxv (1994), 26. 54

13

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

the centre: landscape and settlement; more militarised societies than lowland England; and only partial inclusion in traditional English administrative systems.58 By contrast, Maureen Meikle has demonstrated that the northern boundary, while termed ‘the borders’, was more apparent than real by the early modern period. She contends that as an official international boundary this frontier was far more complex, for it can be compared and contrasted as a social, economic, linguistic, religious, geophysical and cultural frontier that was only recognised by the native borderers when it suited them. For instance, the frontier miraculously reappeared when an individual fell foul of laws across the border. For the most part, though, relations were good between landed families either side of the border, especially in the east marches.59 However, even contemporaries did not fully understand the finer subtleties of this border concord, especially those outsiders who were required to administer the northeastern parts of the kingdom. Lord Hunsdon, warden of the east march from 1568 to 1596, reiterated the lament that the local gentry contributed to the problems of the area by virtue of their lack of cooperation with each other, describing ‘such mallis amonge them, and such mistrust one of another’.60 It is hardly surprising, then, that historians have tended to take the fact of border hostility at face value. What is certain is that it is at these, sometimes artificial, boundaries that the concept of social spaces is most useful in tackling the shifting and changing and evolving identities to be investigated by this book. Stefan Berger has argued that ‘border regions’ had a very clear role in the formation of both national and regional identities in nineteenth- and twentieth-century continental Europe.61 They acted either as zones of mutual conflict or as zones of mutual contact and exchange, although most were both with changing emphases and identities. The more ‘successful’ were those that achieved a kind of ‘hybridity of identity’, for which, Berger maintained, a strong local elite was the first prerequisite. Subjecting the elites of England’s northeastern reaches at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries to close and detailed scrutiny should go some way towards helping to discover any sense of regional identity in those parts in the pre-modern period.

58

Steven G. Ellis, ‘Tudor state formation and the shaping of the British Isles’, in Ellis and Sarah Barber, Conquest and union: fashioning a British state, 1485–1725, Harlow 1995. 59 Maureen Meikle, A British frontier? Lairds and gentlemen in the eastern borders, 1540–1603, East Lothian 2004, especially chapter 8. 60 CBP, i, no. 563. Yet, Hunsdon did not set foot in Northumberland after April 1588, occasioning William Morton, the mayor of Berwick, to complain directly to the queen about the parlous condition of his town as a consequence of the warden’s absence, in twelve closely written pages, CBP, i, no. 806. 61 Stefan Berger, ‘Everywhere a border? Border regions and identity formation in Europe’, September 2004 colloquium. 14

INTRODUCTION

The early modern North and North East has acquired a very potent image in the minds of historians. In 1900, a ‘problem of the North’ was identified, which was to influence perceptions and estimates about the character of the North thereafter.62 However, the notion that the area was irredeemably backward is no longer the orthodoxy among historians of the north-eastern counties. Beginning with A.G. Dickens, advanced by B.W. Beckinsale, and further refined by R.B. Dobson, a more dispassionate, and subtler, approach towards the area has been adopted.63 Marcombe’s essay on the 1569 rebellion cautioned that explaining it by reference to ‘the “wild men of the north” neglects the political and religious complexities of the region’.64 And Watts’s history of Northumberland dismissed its reputation as a barbarous, Catholicdominated backwater as an exaggeration, making the point that ‘many of the people who made derogatory comments’ about the county ‘had ulterior, and sometimes sinister, motives for so doing’.65 This book will question the validity of those earlier judgements, and elaborate on later developments in the historiography of the north-eastern parts of England. Of course, other parts of the kingdom have acquired similarly distinctive identities. The most obvious example is Cornwall, which was perceived as an equally remote and lawless corner of the realm, which had a genuinely discrete ethnic make-up, and even retained its own language.66 Contrasting the far south-western and north-eastern parts of the kingdom would be interesting. However, this is an analysis in depth of one particular region: it is not possible simultaneously to develop another such enquiry into a second region. In any case, a comparative study between just two regions would also have its limitations. Far more profitable is an exercise that involves wide and varied comparisons with several other regions, as appropriate. These are drawn throughout the book, with both counties and urban centres, in accordance with extant sources. The areas most frequently analogised are the northwestern parts of England, as well as Yorkshire, but, on occasion, areas further afield are considered. 62

G.T. Lapsley, ‘The problem of the north’, American Historical Review, v (1900), 440ff. For a comprehensive exposition of the historiography from the first half of the twentieth century, which was consistently hostile towards the north-eastern reaches of England, see A.J. Pollard, North eastern England during the Wars of the Roses: lay society, war and politics, 1450–1500, Oxford 1990, 1–5. 63 A.G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the diocese of York, 1509–1558, Oxford 1959, 2–4; B.W. Beckinsale, ‘The characteristics of the Tudor north’, NH, iv (1969), 67–83; R.B. Dobson, ‘Politics and the church in the fifteenth century north’, in A.J. Pollard, (ed.), The north of England in the age of Richard III, Stroud 1996. 64 David Marcombe, ‘“A rude and heady people”: the local community and the rebellion of the northern earls’, in Marcombe (ed.), The last principality: politics, religion and society in the bishopric of Durham, 1494–1660, Nottingham 1987, 119. 65 Watts, From border to middle shire, 13–14. 66 There is a considerable body of work on Cornwall which is synthesised in Mark Stoyle, ‘Re-discovering difference: the recent historiography of early modern Cornwall’, in Philip Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies, 2nd ser., x (2002), 104–15. 15

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

It is three hundred and fifty years since Thomas Fuller wrote his account of the worthies of England, which declared that ‘men were of a place as of a time’.67 The worthies and their place and time in this book are the county gentry and urban oligarchs of England’s north-eastern parts in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.68 The decision to focus on that particular element in society is based upon the fact that they were the most articulate ‘sorts’ in early modern England. Having generated the vast majority of documentary material in the archive, they are the most accessible subjects, especially for the study of an elusive concept such as regional identity.

North-east elites and regional identity Chapter 2 of this book begins by identifying those elites according to early modern criteria. The heraldic visitations of 1575 and 1615, and the surviving libri pacis, or lists of justices of the peace, are employed to approximate the number of gentry in Durham and Northumberland. Members of the urban oligarchy also were to be found sitting on the commissions of the peace and serving as sheriffs and members of parliament, and they are identified accordingly. Thereafter, their social affiliations and economic bases are explored. An analysis of marriage patterns, evidence for which can be found in the extensive family collections held in the Northumberland and Durham record offices and archives in Durham University and Cathedral, is the starting point for seeking a sense of identity among the county and urban elites. Examining the marriages they contracted tests the supposition that the strong localism of the North meant that ‘even noble and gentry families in the region exhibited, as late as the sixteenth century, exceptionally strong geographically endogamous tendencies’.69 This implicit conservatism carried with it implications for the elites of the North maintaining a distinctly parochial outlook. When considered alongside marriage settlements, both the social and the physical ramifications of identity should be revealed by their matrimonial arrangements. Patterns of land-holding and transfer of property within and beyond the north-eastern counties further illuminate the relationship between landowners and their land and it indicates how far identification was associated with physical space at its most tangible and explicit. The extensive ‘external’ interest in north-eastern property also yields much regarding the north-eastern elites’ affinity to its physical space. In particular, there is considerable evidence of Londoners’ interest in the north-eastern parts, especially as increasing quantities of coal were being discovered there, while the demand for coal by Londoners was matched by their determination to gain an interest in the

67 68 69

Thomas Fuller, The history of the worthies of England, ed. P. Nuttall, London 1840, i, 73. The clergy are the subject of a separate study, forthcoming. Ralph A. Houlbrooke, The English family, 1450–1700, London 1984, 51. 16

INTRODUCTION

wealth thus generated. The potential willingness of landowners in the northeastern counties to benefit Londoners in their thirst for north-eastern estates throws up additional questions about the extent to which north-easterners identified with the very land which comprised their ‘country’. The period covered by this book witnessed the exceptional growth of the north-eastern coal industry, especially from 1580, which has also been adjudged as being ‘utterly different’ from elsewhere in England. 70 This carries with it concomitant implications for the North East experiencing a sense of distinctness, or even uniqueness, especially amongst those who prospered most by it, its coal-owning elite. In Newcastle this was a very small consortium, whose members were also constituents of the town’s trading and mercantile associations, and who enjoyed very particular privileges as a result. Finally, ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ feelings of identity converged as the elites of Northumberland and Durham left this life. For physical and social space were intertwined as arrangements were made for the disposal of corporeal remains and the permanent celebration of societal existence. Wills and funeral monuments are thus examined for evidence of regional considerations in the decision-making processes. Chapter 3 considers the governance and governors of the North East, especially after the political (as well as the social) landscape of Durham and Northumberland was transformed following the events of 1569. A lasting outcome was that there were no significant noblemen living in the northeastern reaches of the realm. How this impacted on the government of the borders is analysed, as are the consequences of Queen Elizabeth’s accession on the clerical hierarchy of Durham. Both of these developments had the potential to reshape the distinctiveness of the frontier zone and the palatinate, which very different areas composed the north-eastern portion of the kingdom. Thereafter, north-eastern responses to the imposition of highly centralized administrative structures on the area are investigated.71 On the one hand these could provide another example of identity making itself felt in an oppositional sense, as local elites found themselves under pressure from the demands of central government. On the other, it questions whether assumptions can automatically be made that cooperation with central authorities necessarily overrode sentiments of local distinctiveness among the Northumberland and Durham elites.72 In their capacities as magistrates on the county bench, as wardens and deputy wardens of the borders and later as border

70 David Levine and Keith Wrightson, The making of an industrial society. Whickham 1560–1765, Oxford 1991, 25. 71 See, for instance, Steven G. Ellis, ‘Tudor state formation and the shaping of the British Isles’, in Ellis and Barber (eds), Conquest and union, 40–63. 72 Michael Braddick, ‘Administrative performance: the representation of political authority in early modern England’, in Braddick and John Walter (eds), Negotiating power in early modern society, Cambridge 2001, 187.

17

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

commissioners, as sheriffs, members of the Council of the North and (specifically to Northumberland) as members of parliament, the gentry and urban oligarchs are recognised as constituting the elites of the North East. But establishing who were the most diligent officers is a more reliable indicator of willingness to serve their town or county, and by extension a measure of identification with their physical space. This is traced through attendance registers in quarter sessions records. Most offices were clearly defined by county, in common with the rest of the kingdom. However, given the geographic position of Newcastle, its rising urban oligarchy was able to operate as comfortably in one county as the other, as well as offering an alternative focus to the two counties. Chapter 4 looks at the impact of the state on the elites of north-eastern England, especially on the borders, which was the area that most exercised central government. Estimations expressed by royal officials about Durham and Northumberland tended to be uniformly pessimistic, consistently portraying the two counties as ‘uncivil’ and backward. The chief targets for censure were Durham and Northumberland’s governors. Central government was aware that it was not fully conversant with the distinctive conditions in the far North, and was genuinely concerned about the level of lawlessness on the sensitively placed northern frontier of the kingdom, which gave those parts a certain particularity. But, somewhat surprisingly, the north-eastern counties’ native gentry generally confirmed the negative conclusions drawn by the central authorities and their officers. The implications for perceptions of identity, consequently, are increasingly ambiguous as real and imagined identities became inextricable, one from the other. The chapter goes on to consider how the Tudors’ centralising policies led to the appointment of outsiders to key administrative posts, in the 1590s, and their reception by the resident gentry. A detailed case-study of the wardenship of the middle march highlights the extent to which additional tensions were superimposed upon existing factionalism within the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom, and, by extension, how far these were reflected in the blurring of identities. In particular, the consequences of incoming officials’ failure to accommodate the native gentry and to identify with the area are examined. After 1603, the union of the crowns, together with the proposed dissolution of the border between Scotland and England, was set to be the dominant consideration in the North, and the North East. The course of implementing the union – especially within parliament – is traced for specific north-eastern involvement in and constructions on the process by the members of parliament for Northumberland, and those representing the boroughs of Newcastle, Morpeth and Berwick. What emerges is deep divisions within the northeastern parts, at a number of levels. Thereafter, one of the most significant developments occasioned by the regal union was the setting up of a border commission to replace the confusing and confused border laws that had obtained until King James resolved to abolish them in April 1603. Requiring much closer collaboration with their Scottish counterparts, this added another 18

INTRODUCTION

element to the mosaic of identities that existed in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. Returning to Hudson’s crucial question – ‘How did people acquire their identities in their own and others’ eyes?’73 – the way in which the elites from the north-eastern parts were regarded by those from elsewhere is a useful means to gauge their distinctiveness. In particular, Chapter 5 questions assumptions that the elites of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom were any less ‘civil’ or more ineffectual than those from elsewhere in England. It engages with early modern concepts of civility as well as the organic political analogies that were employed by commentators about the condition of the north-eastern parts of the realm. The debate regarding the relative sophistication of the county gentry and their urban counterparts is then addressed to locate contrasting senses of identity within that corner of the kingdom. Central government’s involvement in the affairs of Newcastle’s government, when the clash between the coalowning elites and the less privileged urban oligarchs in the affairs of the town was drawn to its attention, reveals similar internal divisions and conflicts of interest and identity to those found elsewhere in the north-eastern parts. These were paralleled by challenges to the Newcastle coal-owners from throughout the kingdom. Thus, multi-layered civic identities within Newcastle had resonances far beyond the north-eastern parts. The chapter goes on to disentangle implicit and explicit expressions of identity. Accordingly, extant quarter sessions records for both north-eastern counties are interrogated for levels of crime and the performance of the counties’ officers and compared with those from other counties. Educational standards, traditionally regarded as far inferior to those in the rest of the kingdom, are also reassessed. The chapter is rounded off by considering the impact of the union of the crowns on the far North East of England, when its status as a frontier zone was negated, bringing with it an inevitable reappraisal of its disposition. A very particular identity in the early modern period was an adherence to Roman Catholicism, which, traditionally, has been regarded as most ingrained in the North of England. This introduces the concept of ideological and, more specifically, confessional identities, which are the subject of Chapter 6. Arguably, these transcended physical, cultural and social identities. For, on the one hand, it was an identity that marked a clear sense of ‘otherness’ within the physical boundaries of the region, but, on the other, it was a shared identity that stretched beyond the region and even the kingdom. Certainly, in the period under consideration, there was the opportunity for a shared consciousness of suffering, and this can be explored through the works of C. Sharpe and J. Morris.74 However, these were nineteenth-century constructions. The salient question is how much is based upon expressions of identity

73

Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’, 14. Memorials of the rebellion of 1569, ed. C. Sharp, London 1840; Troubles of our Catholic forefathers, ed. J. Morris, 1887. 74

19

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Moreover, is there any justification for claiming that shared Catholic experiences were either singular or specific to the north-eastern parts of England? Evidence has been sought amongst the records generated by the anti-recusancy measures taken against some Catholic families. It was there that different ideological identities encountered one another, as the zeal of those committed to rooting out and dealing with Catholic recusants seems to confirm the existence of counteridentities, or identities adopted in response to ‘others’. At the same time, the Catholics’ adversaries, especially the Puritans, were increasingly subject to similar experiences as activity against them by the central authorities was intensified, making for the inception of similar oppositional identities. Meanwhile, the end of the period covered by this book witnessed the breakdown of the so-called Calvinist consensus, driven by the bishop of Durham, with the potential to create, or reawaken, another confessional identity, rooted in Durham’s very distinctive past. The final chapter examines an even more elusive ‘imagined’ identity. This is perhaps the most powerful sense of identity of all, discernible through collective memory and traditions. This evidence is the most intangible of all but a careful inspection of the printed material may yield the surest indications of a sense of particularity in England’s north-eastern reaches. Most notable of the collective memories pertaining to the north-eastern parts is that generated by the mythology surrounding St Cuthbert, which has been advanced regularly from Bede in the eighth century, through the sixteenth and up to the twentieth century. But how far was this ‘rediscovery’ of local religious tradition related to forging identities? Certainly, this ‘imagined’ identity was greatly expanded and amplified in the late nineteenth century when the new, self-confident regional bourgeoisie formed regional industrial organisations, which, in recognition of its distinctive heritage and identity, promoted a ‘Northumbrian revival’.75 For the point has been made that ‘regional distinctions were revealed in imaginative literature and were to a significant extent consciously created by the people who were being distinguished’.76 As well as the religious cult of St Cuthbert, there were other legends, celebrating secular heroes, transmitted through the medium of ballads, as well as those relying on folk-memory. In addition there are the systematic county surveys undertaken by William Camden and Raphael Holinshed, at the end of the sixteenth century, whose work reveals much about conceptions of the north-eastern counties and their place in the kingdom. In turn, these complement the new medium of mapmaking in the late sixteenth century, with its incorporation of extraneous detail.

75 See Norman McCord, ‘The regional identity of north east England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, in Royle, Issues of regional identity; and Robert Colls and Bill Lancaster (eds), Geordies. Roots of regionalism, Edinburgh 1992. 76 Langton, ‘The industrial revolution and the regional geography of England’, 157.

20

INTRODUCTION

In common with the rest of the kingdom, there were also specifically urban rituals and festivities. Corpus Christi celebrations reinforced notions of civic pride and identity in both Durham and Newcastle. These were gradually superseded by more secular entertainments, after the Reformation, which may have been less parochial in their nature but did not necessarily erode civilians’ sense of importance. Travelling players arriving in Newcastle brought with them a metropolitan culture, giving the elites of the north-eastern parts the opportunity to embrace this alternative, and additional, medium through which to channel their sense of self. Finally, the absence of regional identity in recent writing on early modern England may be explained by the fact that the concept did not appear in the institutional record, and, therefore, was not observably instrumental in colouring the development and functioning of the early modern English state.77 This seems sound, if not indubitable. Yet the regional identities that are apparent after 1800 do not emerge from a void.78 This book will endeavour to shine a light into the physical and social space that is the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century north-eastern corner of England. In so doing, it will go some way towards illuminating its elites and any idiosyncratic characteristics they may have had, which, in turn, may expose any sense of ‘regional’ identity or identities they may or may not have consciously or sub-consciously embraced.

77

Braddick, ‘Elite formation and state formation’, September 2004 colloquium. Wrightson, ‘Elements of life: the remaking of the north east, 1500-1760’, in Colls and Lancaster, Northumbria. 78

21

2

Elites of and in north-eastern England Elites are the more privileged members of society exercising the greatest authority or enjoying the highest standing. They are the people who govern and command, who regulate, sanction and discipline others, and who receive concomitant privileges and acquire exclusivity amongst their fellows in return. In the mid-sixteenth century this tended to be those of gentry status and above. But identifying precisely who constituted the gentry ‘plunges us immediately into a quagmire’.1 Applying modern methodologies to assess its precise composition based on perceptions, legal definitions, or even land-holding and wealth, ‘inevitably involves building “guestimates” upon one another’, so that it is difficult to argue with Heal and Holmes’s conclusion that ‘the task of evaluating the total size of the group is well-nigh impossible’.2 Added to this, the emergent urban groupings in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries make for an analysis increasingly fraught with difficulties. Taking Marshall’s prescription as a guide, that ‘a cardinal task’ for historians is ‘attempting to discover how contemporaries saw their own . . . social grouping’,3 this investigation will be conducted in reference to early modern categorizations. Yet even contemporaries were perplexed. ‘What a gentleman is, tis hard with us to define’,4 wrote the legal historian and antiquary, John Selden, early in the seventeenth century. In the 1560s, Sir Thomas Smith, Queen Elizabeth’s secretary of state, had attributed gentlemanly status to anyone who ‘studies the laws of the realm, who studies at the universities, who professes liberal sciences and to be short, who can live idly without labour’.5 One of the definitions of gentlemanly status offered by Selden was ‘he that is reputed one’, specifically in Westminster Hall, which housed the courts of law and was one of the chief centres of London life. This confirmed Smith’s much quoted test of gentility as a willingness to display appropriate ‘port’ (that is, deportment), ‘charge and countenance’.6 In other words, gentlemen and women ultimately were defined as those who were acknowledged as such by others. 1

See J.S. Morrill, ‘The northern gentry and the great rebellion’, NH, xv (1979), 67. Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The gentry in England and Wales 1500–1700, Stanford 1994, 12, 10. 3 Marshall, The tyranny of the discrete, 84 and see above, Chapter 1. 4 Table talk of John Seldon, ed. Sir F. Pollock, London 1927, 50. 5 Thomas Smith, De republica Anglorum, ed. M. Dewer, Cambridge 1982, 70–3. 6 Smith, De republica, 72. 2

22

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Qualitative judgements are important: but how do they translate into actual numbers? An alternative criterion provided by Selden for establishing gentility was ‘he that hath arms’ as determined by the Court of Honours, and confirmed in the regular heraldic visitations to establish families’ armigerousness. This suggests a firmer footing for constructing aggregates of gentlemen; but it, too, has its limitations. Not least among these were the incidents of concocting bogus pedigrees or, conversely, apathy on the part of families not particularly concerned about their status.7 In the absence of any infallible criterion, the heraldic visitations of 1575 and 1615 will be employed to approximate the number of gentry in Durham and Northumberland. For although the figures are crude and despite their drawbacks, they have the virtue of having been compiled contemporaneously and for the purpose of establishing who constituted the most prominent gentlemen in each county. Thus, they will also help to identify those who could claim to be part of the county elite. Further difficulties arise in examining the gradations of the gentry.8 In his ‘division of the parts and persons of the common wealth’, Smith differentiated between the nobilitas maior, that is, lords and nobleman, and the nobilitas minor, which he further distinguished as knights, esquires and simple gentlemen.9 By the early seventeenth century, John Morrill has argued, a new conception of gentility totally supplanted the old one, which had originated within a context that had been based upon rights to hold land in return for certain obligations and responsibilities. Morrill redefined the gentry as governors. 10 Yet that concept was already well implanted by the late medieval period. According to Sir Thomas Elyot, in his handbook for gentlefolk, written in 1531, ‘gentylmen’ were an essential component of the ‘cessions’ or assemblies that were convened for the government of the ‘countrey’.11 Significantly, the work was entitled The book called the Governor. A study of landownership in early modern Cheshire and Shropshire revealed that the shrievalty and membership of parliament and of the commission of the peace were dominated by the larger landowners, reflecting the hierarchy of landownership.12 In particular, ‘[t]he commission of the peace constituted an elite’,13 with a place on the magisterial

7

For a discussion of this in county Durham see M.J. Tillbrook, ‘Aspects of the government and society of county Durham, 1558–1642’, PhD diss., Liverpool 1981, 605. 8 For charting the ‘evolution of a graded gentry’, see Peter Coss, ‘Knights, esquires and the origins of social gradation in England’, TRHS, 6th ser., v (1995), 155–78. 9 Smith, De republica, 64–73. 10 Morrill, ‘Northern gentry’, 71. 11 Sir Thomas Elyot, The book called the Governor, London 1531, A2r. 12 M.D.G. Wanklyn, ‘Landownership, political authority and social status in Shropshire and Cheshire, 1560–1700’, in Landownership and power in the regions, Wolverhampton 1978, 8–10; Tim Thornton, Cheshire and the Tudor state, 1480–1560, Woodbridge 2000. 13 J.H. Gleason, The justices of the peace in England 1558–1640, Oxford 1969, 47. And see also H.R. French, ‘“Ingenious & learned gentlemen”: social perceptions and self-fashioning among parish elites in Essex, 1680–1740’, SH, xxv (2000), 44–66. 23

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

bench demonstrating a gentleman’s status within the county. Accordingly, the surviving libri pacis, or lists of justices of the peace, will be used to supplement the heraldic visitations,14 thereby identifying another strand of the elites according to contemporary criteria. The period covered by this book also saw members of the urban oligarchy sitting on the commissions of the peace and serving as sheriffs and members of parliament. Thus, they too were governors. Smith is quite clear in his prescription that the interests of ‘citizens and burgesses’ ought to be confined to the cities or corporate towns where they dwelt. ‘Generally in the shyres they be of none accompte’, he pronounced, except when they represented their cities or boroughs in parliament.15 This distinction sufficed as long as they were not a part of the landed configuration, but their centuries-old inclination to buy estates for themselves, and sometimes to be drawn from cadet lines of county families, blurred the difference between them and the landed gentry. Morrill asserted that ‘the right of urban oligarchs, who owned little or no freehold land, to be styled gentleman was conceded by the end of the seventeenth century, but not earlier’.16 But, of course, there are examples of merchants buying country estates from at least the fourteenth century, such as Sir John Pulteney, the London merchant who built Penshurst at Tunbridge Wells in Kent in the 1340s, and Roger Thornton, merchant, member of parliament and mayor of Newcastle at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries. On the other hand, those who entered the landed elite appeared disinclined to claim gentlemanly status. Certainly, the citizens and burgesses of both Durham and Northumberland served their towns as mayors and members of parliament and sat on the county bench in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. But the proportion of these urban oligarchs who appeared in either the heralds’ visitation returns or on the commissions of the peace was very small, suggesting that they regarded their position as leading citizens to be every bit as desirable as that of county ‘gentlemen’ or ‘esquires’.17 Taken further, the extent to which acquiring land fostered a sense of identity with its location also seems open to question. In the middle of the seventeenth century, a prominent courtier who became a significant Shropshire landowner declared: ‘I am Lord Craven, my father was Lord Mayor of London, my grandfather Lord Knows Who.’18 This was in marked contrast to John Lilburne, of Thickley in county Durham, who claimed the traditional

14

These are to be found in BL, MS Egerton 2345 (for 1575); BL, MS Lansdowne 737, fos 178v–179 (for 1584); C66/1468v (for 1596) and BL, MS Add. 38139 (for 1604). 15 Smith, De republica, 73. 16 Morrill, ‘Northern gentry’, 73. 17 For the development of a self-conscious bourgeoisie, see Nicholas Rogers, ‘Money, land and lineage: the bourgeoisie of Hanoverian London’, SH, iv (1979), 437–54. In particular, Rogers stresses the reciprocity of landed and commercial interests. 18 Daniel Defoe, The complete English tradesman, London 1726, 377–8. Cited by Wanklyn, ‘Landownership, political authority and social status’. 24

ELITES

credentials of gentility thus: ‘I am the sonne of a Gentleman, and my friends are of rank and quality in the Countrie where they live.’19 It would seem that the county gentleman tended to be more conservative than his urban counterpart when it came to identifying himself according to his social standing among his neighbours.

Social relations and the north-eastern elites Lineage was of far greater importance in the century before Lord Craven’s pronouncement. But any self-conscious sense of identity that the gentlemen in the diocese of Durham might have had in the sixteenth century, based upon their ancestry, was roundly condemned by bishop James Pilkington (from an ancient Lancashire family). He demanded from the pulpit: ‘And to rejoice in ancient blood, what can be more vain? Do we not all come from Adam our earthly father?’20 As well as it being significant that a bishop could speak in these terms, berating his flock for their excessive concern with their ancestry, he was drawing attention to a very salient aspect of elites. For dynastic matters were of paramount importance to them and the ability to trace one’s pedigree was one of their distinguishing features. The crucial first step towards securing the survival of a family’s lineage was locating a suitable wife, the importance of which was clearly appreciated by the gentry in the seventeenth century. Anticipating Jane Austen, a member of the Verney family described it as ‘the weightiest business’ to be undertaken by them.21 A number of considerations influenced the choice of a wife, such as transmitting wealth and property and furthering political and social alliances. Connections were sometimes made across long distances, with motives for such exogenous marriages including a desire to widen one’s range of influence and to extend the scope of one’s prestige. It has been noted that the strong localism of the North meant that its elites maintained ‘exceptionally strong geographically endogamous tendencies’.22 If this were true, it would suggest that there was a heightened degree of insularity that was peculiar to the elites of the North, marking them out as distinctive from elsewhere in England.

19

John Lilburne, A worke of the beaste, London 1638. Cited in James, Family, lineage and civil society, 106–7n. 20 The works of bishop Pilkington, ed. James Scholefield (Parker Society xli, 1842), 125. A sermon preached on Haggai, chapter 2 (The greater glory of the second temple), verses 1–3. He was anticipated in this ‘homiletic argument’ by John Ball whose sermon before the revolt of 1381 included the lines, ‘when Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’ G.R. Owst, Literature and pulpit in medieval England, Oxford 1961, 290–1. 21 M. Slater, ‘The weightiest business: marriage in an upper-gentry family in seventeenth century England’, P&P, lxxii (1976), 25–54. 22 Ralph A. Houlbrooke, The English family, 1450–1700, London 1984, 51. 25

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

The figures produced by Heal and Holmes for geographically endogamous marriages on the eve of the civil war confirm that the percentage of intracounty gentry alliances was much higher in the north-western counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumberland and Westmorland (71 per cent, 65 per cent and 62.5 per cent) than in Dorset, Hertfordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire (49.5 per cent, 37.4 per cent, 43 per cent and 44 per cent). On the other hand, it was very similar to those in Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk (82.5 per cent, 71 per cent and 69 per cent).23 Northumberland and Durham did not form a part of their reckoning. Heal and Holmes acknowledge that the calculations employed in compiling their figures were crude and did not compare like with like. The following treatment of elite marriages in Northumberland and Durham is similarly rudimentary.24 Nevertheless, it reveals a comparable picture. Of 94 marriages in Northumberland, made during the period covered by this study, 62 were between gentlemen of Northumberland and the daughters of other Northumberland gentry (66 per cent), while in Durham 191 of 360 marriages were made within the county (53 per cent). By this reckoning the elites of Northumberland and Durham were no more parochial in their choice of marriage partners than those of many other counties in England. A more detailed breakdown of exogenous or, more specifically, out of county marriages, shows that 12 of the 29 marriages in Northumberland were with daughters of Durham gentry, five chose wives from Yorkshire, three from Westmorland and Cumberland and three from Newcastle. Others married ladies from Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Somerset, Kent (two) and Scotland (two). As might be expected, a significant number of Durham marriages were made with daughters of Northumberland gentry (31), from Cumberland and Westmorland (13) and from Newcastle (18). Lancashire and Cheshire furnished ten brides and London four, while wives also came from sixteen other counties throughout England. But by far the largest number of exogenous Durham marriages were with ladies from Yorkshire (66). With Anglo-Scottish marriage technically (although, clearly, not in practice) illegal,25 the elites of Northumberland were more circumscribed in their selection of brides than those of Durham, thus highlighting a distinction between the two counties. There were long-standing connections between Durham and Yorkshire. A study of the Tees valley in the later middle ages, which concentrated on the Clervaux family of Croft-on-Tees (Yorkshire) in the second half of the fifteenth century, found that their social circle of kinsmen and friends focused on the 23

Heal and Holmes, Gentry, 61. All these calculations are based on marriages made by heads of households. Not all references record the bride’s origin. For references see Appendix: Elites of and in the northeastern counties of England. 25 The law against cross-border marriage was just one of those in a ‘kalendar’ of statutes under discussion for abolition, on 2 November 1604, as part of the union debates in parliament. BL, Add. MSS 26635, fo. 4. 24

26

ELITES

Tees valley. But it also stretched into Wensleydale, down to York and up to Durham.26 These links were still going strong over a hundred years later. In the sixteenth century, William Clervaux’s daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Christopher Chaytor of Butterby (of St Oswald’s parish, which also extends into the city of Durham). Christopher Chaytor originally came from much further afield. He was the son of a Newcastle merchant, who had become very wealthy – through the astute execution of his office as surveyor general for the northern counties – and had been able to buy the Butterby estate from John, Lord Lumley.27 Elizabeth Clervaux also had kinship connections in the north of county Durham and beyond, for she was related to Margerie Errington, heir to her father, Richard, of Cockle Park in Northumberland and Morton, near Houghton Le Spring, in the north of county Durham. Margerie was married to Richard Bellasis, of Henknoll, near Bishop Auckland, also in Durham.28 Significantly, children and grandchildren of both Margerie Bellasis and Elizabeth Chaytor married into Yorkshire families. For instance, Christopher and Elizabeth Chaytor’s second son and heir, Thomas, in the seventeenth century, perfectly embodied this Yorkshire/Durham configuration, for he married first Eleanor Thornell of East Newton, near Helmsley in Yorkshire, and then Jane, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest of Stella, west of Gateshead, while he lived at Butterby.29 Electing to form an alliance with a family from beyond the county did not weaken pre-existing attachments, because, almost invariably, men continued to live and operate in the same location as before and maintained their involvement in its affairs. However, the nature of elite marriage meant that women were required to adopt an affinity with an area that might be a few miles away or (very occasionally) at the opposite end of the country from the vicinity where they had grown up. Their new role, as wives, was clearly articulated by William Gouge, puritan rector of Blackfriars, London, in the 1630s. He decreed that ‘the wife is by God’s providence appointed a joint governor with the husband of the Family’.30 Thus, she reflected her husband’s public role in microcosm. This was slightly different from previous centuries when elite wives had to represent their husbands when they were away from home (usually at war or at court) at all levels: administratively, judicially and, 26 A.J. Pollard, ‘Richard Clervaux of Croft; a North Riding squire in the fifteenth century’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, l (1978), 151–69, and reprinted in idem, The worlds of Richard III, Stroud 2001. 27 The Surtees Society has printed a selection of wills in four volumes. Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manner, language, statistics, etc. of the northern counties of England in four parts (SS, 1835, 1860, 1906, 1929). Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 203. 28 Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 315. 29 Wills and inventories (SS, 1929), 82. 30 William Gouge, Of domesticall duties: eight treatises, 3rd edn, London 1634, 17. For a discussion of the wife’s role in this period, see Susan Dwyer Amussen, ‘Political households and domestic politics: family and society in early modern thought’, in her An ordered society. Gender and class in early modern England, New York 1988.

27

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

even, martially. ‘She must govern them all’, wrote Christine de Pisan, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and she advised that, to accomplish this effectively, ‘she must be knowledgeable in the mores of her locality’.31 The relatively private nature of this function by the early modern period makes it difficult to draw conclusions about how individual women fulfilled their duty in this respect, and, by extension, how far and to what extent they transferred their attachment to their new location. Arrangements they made for their mortal remains after death offer an indication of their affinity with the area where they spent their married life, while there is very limited evidence of their making bequests to its poor.32 Otherwise, measuring their relationship with their adopted place of residence is largely a matter of speculation. Men, on the other hand, could demonstrate the degree to which they identified with their locality by serving it (unpaid) in an administrative capacity. A comparison of endogenous and exogenous marriages made by the most diligent of these local officers might reveal a correlation between that attachment and choice of marriage partner.33 Of the most industrious justices of the peace in Northumberland, six married within the county, two married into Durham, while the remaining three chose brides from Newcastle, Yorkshire and Kent, suggesting a clear connection. However, the brothers Ralph and Edward Gray – who between them served as sheriff, deputy warden and then border commissioner, and represented Northumberland in parliament – married wives from Somerset and Norfolk respectively. This was echoed in Durham where members of the prominent Bowes family, who occupied positions on the Council of the North, found wives from Derbyshire, Worcestershire and Surrey. It could be argued that the Bowes family had a less provincial outlook on account of their engagement with central government through membership of the Council of the North and as agents of the crown (for example, during the northern rising), which also afforded them the opportunity to meet prospective brides from elsewhere. Yet members of the lesser Durham gentry also made exogenous marriages, such as James Shaftoe, grand juror, whose wife came from Nottinghamshire. Marriages of the most active justices of the peace in Durham were fairly evenly divided, with four allying with Durham families, two with daughters of Northumberland gentry and two with families from Newcastle. Others chose brides from

31 Christine de Pisan, The treasury of the city of ladies, trans. and ed. C. Willard and M. Cosman, New York 1989, ii, 168–72. One who did as Christine prescribed was Margaret Paston, for whom see Helen Castor, Blood and roses: the Paston family in the fifteenth century, London 2004, passim, and Colin Richmond, The Paston family in the fifteenth century: endings, Manchester 2001, 88–127. 32 This is discussed below. 33 This discussion is based on information extrapolated from Durham quarter sessions indictment rolls, in DRO, CRO Q/S/II 1–8, and printed in Durham quarter sessions rolls (SS, 1991); Northumberland quarter sessions’ Vetera indictamenta, NRO (Morpeth), QS1. The relative assiduity of county officers is addressed in Chapter 3.

28

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Norwich, Nottinghamshire and London, and two from Oxfordshire. Of the most hardworking members of the bench, Clement Colmore and William James were clergymen who attended the university of Oxford, while Robert Cooper was trained at the Inner Temple, thus reflecting their location when they were at an age to choose a bride. On the other hand, the next most industrious justice of the peace, Thomas Calverley, also had a legal education, at Lincoln’s Inn, but married a sister of the Newcastle hostman, Henry Anderson. Newcastle citizens seem to have been more likely to marry within the north-eastern parts of the kingdom rather than beyond.34 Ambrose Dudley, alderman of Newcastle, chose a wife from Buckinghamshire, but this was atypical. Henry Anderson, another Newcastle alderman, married into the prominent Northumberland Collingwood family, and then bought an estate in county Durham. His father, Henry Anderson senior, chose a wife from the county of Northumberland, thus further demonstrating the ease with which he moved between Newcastle, Durham and Northumberland. For he and his son served the town and both counties as sheriff, mayor, alderman and commissioner of the peace. It was perhaps no coincidence that Sir Thomas Calverley, who had married an Anderson, was one of the very few county gentlemen who sat on both Durham and Northumberland’s commissions of the peace. Sir George Selby from Newcastle married a Selby from Northumberland, the Newcastle Riddells took wives from Durham as well as from Newcastle, while the Northumberland gentleman, William Fenwick, married ladies from Northumberland and then from Newcastle. The Liddells, originally from Newcastle, bought Ravensworth Castle and thereafter styled themselves as being from Ravensworth, but continued to marry wives from Newcastle. And links were forged between the Brandlings of Gosforth and families from counties Durham and Northumberland by the marriages of Robert and his son, Francis, to ladies from Durham and Northumberland, and Ursula Brandling to William Carr of Ford, in the north of Northumberland. Finally, James Clavering and his son, John, of Axwell in Durham, both married Newcastle ladies, as did bishop William James. The incidence of marriages between traditional county families and citizens of Newcastle is not high, but they did take place since at least the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which belies the notion that the two spheres were mutually exclusive. Nor can assumptions automatically be made that Newcastle marriages were considered inferior to those contracted amongst the county elites. Parochialism, manifest by endogenous marriage, does not necessarily equate with a heightened sense of localism, as signified by a commitment to one’s county in an official capacity. In any case, most people marry within their vicinity. An analysis of marriage settlements might more usefully be employed

34

This discussion is based on references in the Appendix: Elites of and in the north-eastern counties of England. 29

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

to ascertain the degree of attachment to their land, especially when such marriage portions included real estate. Property was clearly central to decisions about marriage, although it is impossible precisely to quantify its importance. Certainly, contemporaries advised that partners be equal in ‘estate’, while Lawrence Stone’s conclusion that marriage among the propertied sorts was essentially ‘an institutional device to ensure the perpetuation of the family and its property’35 is borne out by the care taken over drawing up marriage settlements. For instance, the marriage between Ralph, son and heir of Robert Delaval of Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, and Jane Hilton, eldest daughter of the late Thomas Hilton of Hilton Castle, in Durham, generated extensive documentation. The articles of agreement, signed on 11 May 1599, were witnessed by members of the Bowes, Gray and Radcliffe families, who were all close relatives of the prospective bride and groom. The final settlement went through at least one draft, on 18 June 1599, which consisted of four, very large, closely written pages, drawn up between Robert and Ralph Delaval, on the one part, and Ralph and Edward Gray, of Chillingham and Morpeth, respectively, in Northumberland, George Bowes, of Biddick in Durham, and Talbot Bowes, of Richmond, Yorkshire, on the other.36 The connection between the Delaval and Bowes families was repeated in the next generation as Ralph Delaval’s eldest daughter married George Bowes of Biddick, in 1619.37 An extremely elaborate settlement was drawn up between three parties for the marriage between Robert Fenwick of Birchfield in Northumberland and Jane, widow of Robert Myers of Longley in Yorkshire, on 21 July 1621, with witnesses from both counties.38 The same Robert Fenwick, together with a Matthew Jopson of Hawkesell in Yorkshire, witnessed the huge tripartite indenture made between Thomas Middleton of Belsay, in Northumberland, and Sir Robert Bindloss of Berwickhall, in Lancashire, for the marriage of Middleton’s son and heir, Charles, and Dorothy, eldest daughter of Bindloss, on 29 August 1623.39 Clearly, ‘[w]here women receive land, the basic means of production, either as a dowry or as part of their inheritance . . . the social implications are greater because its ownership is drastically reorganized at every generation’.40 But what is most striking is the way in which that reconfiguration

35

Edmund Tilney, A brief and pleasant discourse of duties in marriage, called the flowers of friendshippe, London 1571, f.Bii; Gouge, Domesticall duties, 188, 190; Amussen, ‘Political households’, 73; Lawrence Stone, The crisis of the aristocracy, Oxford 1965, 613. 36 NRO (Gosforth), MS Delaval, 1 DE/4/15 and 16. All these parties were also involved in an extensive property transaction concluded on the same date. See 1 DE/1/118. 37 NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/4/21. 38 NRO (Gosforth), MS Middelton (Belsay), Box 1/IX/4. 39 NRO (Gosforth), MS Middleton (Belsay), Box 2/I/1. The marriage portion amounted to £2,000. 40 Jack Goody, ‘Inheritance, property and women: some comparative considerations’, in Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk and E.P. Thompson (eds), Family and inheritance, rural society in western Europe, 1200–1800, Cambridge 1976, 10. 30

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of property holding appeared to be an object of concern across county boundaries, with personal connections taking precedence over geographically prescribed territorial considerations.

The economic base of the north-eastern elites The county gentry It is not the result of mere serendipity that by far the greatest quantity of material in the family collections preserved in the record offices of Durham and Northumberland concerns property transactions,41 making it appear that this was the elites’ overriding regard. These dealings are overwhelmingly between residents of the north-eastern parts of the realm about lands in Durham and Northumberland, but there are also deeds for real estate in other counties. For example, amongst the Salvin family papers there are deeds for property in Yorkshire, Cumberland, Cheshire, Herefordshire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Worcestershire,42 although the heads of that family invariably chose wives from county Durham. Perhaps, more significantly, there are sufficient deals with outsiders, mostly concerning property in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom, to warrant consideration, in particular the incidence of Londoners’ interests in Durham and Northumberland. According to R.H. Tawney, ‘[a]s the chief market for larger transactions by mortgage and sale in real estate, London had its thumb on a considerable section of the landed gentry’.43 This was as true of the northeastern parts of the realm as elsewhere in England. Some of these deals involving Londoners were quite modest while others were very substantial indeed. For instance, just before Christmas in 1612, William Ridley of Willimontswick confirmed an annuity of £200 on his manor of Ridley, near Haydon Bridge, to Sir Allen Apsley, one of the surveyors general of the navy, and his son and daughter. The whole transaction amounted to the sum of a

41 These are the manuscripts of the Hanby Holmes, the Brancepeth estate, the Claverings of Axwell and Greencroft, the Cradocks of Gainford and Hartforth, the Forcers, the Salvins of Croxdale, the Strathmore estate, Tanfield and Beamish and the Greenwell deeds in the Durham county record office; further manuscripts of the Claverings of Greencroft and the Shaftoes of Beamish in the Palace Green Library, University of Durham; manuscripts of the Allgoods of Nunwick, the Blacketts of Matfen, the Newminster Abbey estate, the Carr-Ellisons of Hedgeley, the Collingwoods of Lilburn, the Cooksons of Meldon, Lord Crewe, the Delavals of Seaton Delaval and of Hastings, the Middletons of Belsay, the Ridleys of Blagdon and the Swinburnes of Capheaton in the Northumberland record office, Gosforth. 42 DRO, Salvin family papers, D/Sa/D and D/Sa/F.F. 43 T.H. Tawney, Business and politics under James I. Lionel Cranfield as merchant and minister, Cambridge 1958, 76.

31

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

thousand pounds. A little over eight years later, in February 1621, Apsley, together with Edward Fitton of Cawsley in Cheshire, William Apsley of Pulborough in Surrey, Sir Edward Verney of Westminster and John Oakes of Lambeth, was mortgaging it, as part of a deal worth £2,700, to Richard and Elias Holman of London, Richard Bright of Essex and William Style of Hertfordshire. Some time between 1622 and 1636 William Ridley, ‘the younger’, went on to dispose of property, now worth £3,000, to Richard Musgrave of Ebertstone in Yorkshire.44 Usually it was the crown that granted property in the north-eastern counties to Londoners. For instance, there are charters from James I granting substantial lands to London citizens, including the exchequer auditor, Francis Philipps, in November 1608 and November 1614, and letters patent from Elizabeth I granting the lordship of Grinton (formerly the property of Bridlington Priory in north Yorkshire) to the London goldsmith, Richard Wiseman, in November 1599.45 In November 1622 Sir John Fenwick of Wallington, in Northumberland, sold a tenement in Chollerton to his servant, George Hearon, for £120, which Hearon sold two and a half years later to Richard Wilson and his son of nearby Haughton Castle, for £160.46 The tenement was part of Hexham Priory and had been sold to Fenwick by George Salter of St Dunstans in the West and John Williams of St Peter the Poor, both in London, who had received it as part of a larger grant by the crown. But Londoners’ interest in north-eastern property was rather more complex than simply receiving grants from the crown. In May 1612, John Eldred and George Whitmore were to be found assigning a mortgage for the residue of a sixty-year term to the Northumberland gentlemen, John Orde of West Orde, Roger Morton and William Swinhoe, and, in July 1614, selling Hartley to Robert Delaval.47 Eldred and Whitmore were part of a syndicate of London capitalists who became involved in a huge speculative venture, which was to underpin Jacobean crown finance. They emerged as two of the leading ‘contractors’ or speculators who had bought almost £500,000 worth of crown lands to offset the crown’s debts between 1605 and 1614, which included hundreds of manors throughout England. The ‘contractors’ kept the plum pieces of real estate for themselves, which they exploited fully, and gradually sold the rest.48 Almost incidentally, the Northumberland gentry were able to recover and consolidate

44

NRO (Gosforth), MS Blackett, ZBL1/7; ZBL1/11; ZBL1/13. DRO, MS Miscellaneous, DX 487 1/163b; DX 487 1/163a; MS Hanby Holmes, D/HH/ 6/4/1. 46 NRO (Gosforth), MS Swinburne, ZSW 4/93; 4/95. 47 NRO (Gosforth), MS Delaval, 1DE/1/126; 1DE/1/29. 48 Tawney, Business and politics, 110–11. Eldred was later one of thirty-three London citizens who loaned money to the king in 1617. Robert Ashton, The crown and the money market, 1603–1640, Oxford 1960, 123–4. For the political dimension of Jacobean crown finance, see John Cramsie, Kingship and crown finance under James VI and I, 1603–1625, Royal Historical Society, Woodbridge 2002. 45

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their interests in their own county, as a consequence of the crown’s chronic financial difficulties. The most spectacular property transaction was conducted by George Salter and John Williams, who had sold a tenement in Chollerton to Sir John Fenwick in 1614. Together with Sir Francis Jones, they sold a huge quantity of lands to Sir William Garvey and his sons Henry, William and Nathaniel, in January 1620, for £10,000.49 The scale of the transaction was staggering, and was recorded in a booklet of twenty-eight very closely written pages. It included manors and other property in Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Kent and Yorkshire, as well as tenements in the manors of Hexham and Rothbury in Northumberland and in Hartlepool and Teesdale, and premises in a number of towns including Darlington. How this property came into their possession is unknown but the fact was that a significant amount of north-eastern lands had found their way into the hands of Londoners. Certainly, the possibility of finding minerals underground was sufficient cause for London speculators to buy into the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. For instance, Medomsley, to the south-west of Newcastle, was in the possession of Sir Henry Weston of Sutton in Surrey before being transferred to Thomas Cowper of Clifford’s Inn in London, in June 1585. By February 1610, the lord chancellor, Thomas, earl of Suffolk, had acquired it, who then sold it to Thomas and John Hunter of Medomsley.50 Given its proximity to the Newcastle coalfield, Medomsley was no doubt an attractive proposition. However, the fact that coal was not found there (not even as late as 1635) resulted in its restoration to local purchasers.51 The crown was aware of the necessity to retain an interest in the minerals and other advantageous rights when it granted away any of its property. When Elizabeth patented the lordship of Grinton to Richard Wiseman, she was careful to reserve the advowson and lead mines to the crown. 52 That the brothers Ralph and Robert Delaval already had a ninety-nine-year lease of the coal mines on the former crown lands in Hartley had, no doubt, influenced the ‘contractors’ Eldred and Whitmore in their decision to sell Hartley to the Delavals in 1614. For Londoners were not inclined to support local enterprise.

49

PGL, MS Clavering of Greencroft, F 420. They were a closely connected group of London property contractors who were described as ‘upstart plutocrats’ and ‘poor men . . . [who have] by deceipt and fraud become rich’. HMC, Buccleuch, v, 173. Salter was the brother of Sir Nicholas Salter who, with Sir Francis Jones, were two of the heads of the farm of the Great Customs. Operating between 1604 and 1621, this was another scheme designed to relieve the crown of its financial troubles. Garway was the head of a dynasty of Levant merchants and was similarly involved with crown finance as another farming magnate. See Tawney, Business and politics, 82, 87. 50 NRO (Gosforth), MS Allgood (further deposit), 3256/7/5; 3256/7/13. 51 This is according to data collected by J.U. Nef and presented on a map of the collieries in Durham and Northumberland about 1635. J.U. Nef, The rise of the British coal industry, 2 vols, London 1932 (second impression, 1966), i, 25. 52 DRO (Gosforth), MS Hanby Holmes, D/HH/6/4/1. 33

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Their interest was purely profit driven, as financing local infrastructure was left to local contractors.53 Hence the acquisition of lands in the north-eastern parts of the kingdom was never going to convey any sense of identification with its location to its new owners. The pattern of property deals conducted by the elites of the north-eastern counties is very revealing. Among the hundreds of transactions examined in the Durham and Northumberland record offices, only the Ridleys appear to have conveyed lands to anyone from outside the north-eastern parts of the realm. However, that ancient family was unusual because it was in serious financial difficulties, being described in 1607 as consisting of ‘men of meane estate’, whose head was a minor.54 Thus, it cannot be regarded as representative of gentry attitudes towards their land. For it was from the crown, rather than from private individuals, that Londoners and others acquired property in the north-east reaches of the kingdom. Otherwise, the course of land transactions appears to have been exclusively in the direction of the Durham and Northumberland gentry who acquired property from outsiders. Robert Delaval feoffed Hartley, in Northumberland, from Richard Ruthall of Lillington Lovell in Oxfordshire, in July 1575, and, twenty years later, gained the lordship of Horton, also in Northumberland, which had come into the possession of Sir Edward Fotton and Hugh Hollinghead of Cheshire and Charles Shawcross of London.55 While Anthony Shaftoe of Tanfield, in Durham, bought a number of demesnes and tenements from Henry Jackman of London in July 1598.56 Apart from occasional deals with members of the Yorkshire gentry, the elites of the north-eastern parts of England, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, appear to have been determined to retain their property to themselves. But this was most likely to have been to maintain their social standing. It was the custom for early modern elites to designate themselves by their title, but to be identified by their place of residence. When Sir William Selby, of Pawston in Northumberland, decided to buy himself an estate in 1591, he bought the manor of Ightham Mote in Kent. He and his older brother, Sir John Selby of Twizel, were identified as two of the ‘principal gentlemen’ of Northumberland in the late 1570s,57 but that did not mean Sir William felt compelled to remain in his native Northumberland. The association with Kent continued into the next generation when his nephew, also Sir William, married Dorothy, the daughter and heiress of Charles Bonham, of East Malling in Kent. He eventually inherited Ightham Mote from his uncle. Both Sir William the

53

Ranald Michie, ‘The City of London as a British financial centre: medieval to modern’, September 2004 colloquium. 54 Watts, From border to middle shire, 64. 55 NRO (Gosforth), MS Delaval, 1DE/1/14; 1DE/1/99. 56 DRO MS Tanfield and Beamish, D/X 654/1. 57 BL, MS Royal 18 D III. 34

ELITES

elder and the younger served Northumberland in the capacity of member of parliament, sheriff and justice of the peace, while dividing their time between the South East and the North East, without appearing to experience any conflict of interest. Both were buried at Ightham church. Significantly, when Ightham Mote passed into the hands of a Selby cousin, John Browne, in 1777, he changed his name to Selby by act of parliament – the implication being that the longevity of the family name, or lineage, was more important than location. It has been argued that, ‘the best means to perpetuate a family name was to link that name to a landed estate’, which was established practice in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.58 That urban as well as county elites adopted this principle is illustrated by Michael Mitford, the Baltic trader, member of parliament and East India Company director, who determined that land to be bought near his birthplace in Newcastle could only be inherited by one with the name of Mitford.59 This is just one of the parallels between the county and urban elites in England’s north-eastern parts. Urban oligarchies Urban associations of the merchant elites have been distinguished as ‘a matter chiefly of power and association’, limited mostly to prestigious property-owning associations and links with fashionable society that were useful for marriage purposes.60 Certainly, the property market on Tyneside was buoyant in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, providing opportunities for prosperous merchants to participate in it. For example, alongside traditional families, such as the Ogles and Lumleys, in the 1560s, are to be found the Claverings, Andersons, Chapmans and Shaftoes, dealing in property in Axwell, Swalwell, Whickham and Gateshead, into the 1630s and beyond.61 The Newcastle merchant, Alexander Davison, who first appeared in the Newcastle hostman records in 1617, was buying lands in county Durham from at least 1615, and, in the course of 1625, purchased property worth thousands of pounds.62 The shrewd manipulation of the property market could result in the meteoric rise of a family’s fortunes. In 1583, the relatively insignificant Thomas Cole, a cordwainer of Gateshead, who also lent money to his

58 J. and L. Stone, An open elite? England 1540–1880, Oxford 1984; Henry Horwitz, ‘“The mess of the middle class” revisited: the case of the “big bourgeoisie” of Augustan London’, Continuity and Change, ii (1987), 284. 59 Horwitz, ‘“The mess of the middle class” revisited’, 285. 60 Jonathan Barry, ‘Bourgeois collectivism? Urban associations and the middling sort’, in Barry and Christopher Brooks (eds), The middling sort of people. Culture, society and politics in England, 1550–1800, Basingstoke 1994, 103. 61 DRO, MS Clayton and Gibson, D/CG/ 7/1–61. 62 Extracts from the records of the company of hostmen of Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. F.W. Dendy (SS, 1901), 66ff.; DRO, Greenwell deeds, D/Gr 364–80.

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NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

neighbours in Gateshead and Newcastle and further afield in Berwick, bought a small tenement in Gateshead from a Berwick merchant and his wife. He continued to buy up property on Tyneside and, by 1608, had acquired a half share of a twenty-one-year lease on coal mines in Whickham. His nephew, Ralph, described variously as butcher, gentleman and esquire, was involved in similar affairs: lending money, buying property and leasing coal mines. The Coles dealt with the principal citizens of Newcastle and Gateshead, including the Selbys, Andersons, Tempests and Lumleys, as well as the Darcys of Witton Castle in county Durham.63 In 1604–5, Ralph, the nephew of an artisan, was elected to the company of hostmen; he was sheriff of Newcastle in 1625 and mayor in 1633.64 By the 1630s he was conducting individual business transactions to the tune of £14,000,65 and had bought the estate of Brancepeth, once a seat of the earls of Westmorland.66 Of course, there was a long tradition, from the middle ages, of Newcastle citizens buying lands from the country gentry,67 which continued into the sixteenth century and beyond. In the 1570s and 1580s, the merchants Christopher and Henry Mitford, father and son, and Robert Lewen, purchased property in Hartley from the Delavals. Others bought estates from the crown, such as the merchant Robert Brandling, who bought Newminster Abbey, near Morpeth, in 1609.68 But buying a country estate did not mean a rejection of urban roots. For instance, the Andersons were described as being from Newcastle and Haswell, and, in a catalogue of the principal gentry as late as the reign of Charles I, were designated as Anderson of Newcastle.69 Moreover, every property deal conducted by the Newcastle merchant elite involved lands with coal mines and staithes, or riverside wharfs at which coal was landed onto keel boats, and ‘keelrooms’. Only very occasionally did these transactions, which were sometimes vast, include mansion houses.70 This suggests that the primary attraction of acquiring land was its valuable commercial prospects, with social cachet – if indeed that ever was a consideration – a far less significant concern. For, notwithstanding Sir Thomas Smith’s evaluation of citizens as inferior to the landed gentry, being a citizen of Newcastle was very desirable in the late sixteenth century, when Newcastle had become exceptionally prosperous.

63

DRO, MS Brancepeth, D/Br/F 7–44. Dendy, Hostmen’s records, 53, 54. 65 DRO, D/Br/F 45. 66 Richard Welford (ed.), History of Newcastle and Gateshead, London 1884–7, iii, 340. 67 For instance, rather more than half of the parliamentary burgesses of Newcastle between 1386 and 1421 owned quite extensive estates in Northumberland and Durham. J.S. Roskell (ed.), The history of parliament, the House of Commons, 1386–1421, Stroud 1992, i, 548. 68 NRO (Gosforth), MS Delaval, 1/DE/1/15–19; NRO, MS Blackett-Ord, M.1/2. 69 BL, MS Lansdowne 865, fos 97ff. 70 For example, James Clavering’s purchase of 1629 included coal mines, staithes and four mansion houses. DRO, D/CG/ 7/16. 64

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Newcastle had long been an important trading and commercial centre, and has been described as ‘the most successful of all the “new towns” of postconquest England’.71 It achieved the status of a customs port for the export of wool and hides in 1275, with further customs and subsidies introduced throughout the fourteenth century. Its monopoly of wool exports from the North East was achieved by its exemption from the Calais staple, giving the town of Newcastle a position commensurate with other cities. By 1334, Newcastle was the third most wealthy of the provincial towns, and by 1500 its share of the terminally declining wool trade had actually doubled.72 But most spectacular of all was its coal trade. According to one estimate, albeit based on partial and fragmentary information, the annual shipment of coal from Newcastle increased more rapidly in the years covered by this book than in any other period: from about 35,000 tons in the 1560s to 400,000 tons by 1625, or almost twelvefold. Another account pinpoints the turning-point in the coal trade to the 1570s and 1580s, with shipments in coal rising almost fourfold between the later 1560s and the later 1590s.73 At the same time new pits were opened nearly every year in the reign of Elizabeth and the first decade of the seventeenth century. Although the lower Wear Valley in Durham also furnished coal, which was traded from Sunderland from around 1600, the Newcastle district dominated coal production and coal trade. A poem written in the middle of the seventeenth century enthused: England’s a perfect World! Has Indies too! Correct your Maps: Newcastle is Peru.74

The coal-mine owners of Newcastle were a very particular elite, which was established soon after the Newcastle coal trade entered its most rapid upsurge, when it was appropriated by a very small group of local entrepreneurs. During the sixteenth century the crown had acquired considerable lands containing coal mines, as a consequence of the dissolution of the religious houses in the 1530s or through attainder after 1570. Many of these were in Durham and Northumberland, and were leased by the crown to laymen for terms of up to twenty-one years.75 Then, in 1577, Thomas Sutton, master of the ordnance

71

R.B. Dobson, ‘Urban decline in late medieval England’, TRHS, 5th ser., xxvii (1977), 19. 72 J.F. Wade (ed.), The customs accounts of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1454–1500 (SS, 1995), 3ff.; W.G. Hoskins, ‘English provincial towns in the early sixteenth century’, TRHS, 4th ser., vi (1956), 4; E.M. Carus Wilson and O. Colemand, England’s export trade, 1275–1547, Oxford 1963, 53–69. 73 Nef, The British coal industry, i, 25; John Hatcher, The history of the British coal industry, vol. I, Before 1700: towards the age of coal, Oxford 1993, 78. 74 William Ellis, ‘Upon the Coale-pits about Newcastle upon Tine’, News from Newcastle, London 1651, BL E. 622 (15). 75 Nef, The British coal industry, ii, 436–45 (appendix M), i, 142ff. 37

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

at Berwick and one of the wealthiest commoners in England, gained possession of the queen’s seventy-nine-year lease of all the bishop of Durham’s valuable coal mines in Gateshead and Whickham.76 Five years later he secured a ninetynine-year lease which he sold to Henry Anderson and William Selby, two of Newcastle’s most influential citizens, for a sum thought to be as much as £12,000.77 Anderson and Selby were the ‘front-men’ for a consortium of socalled ‘grand lessees’, whose precise composition is unknown. However, within ten years, this ‘grand lease’ had been concentrated into the hands of a select few. In a letter to Burghley, the mayor of London described the original grand lessees as ‘freehosts’, numbering about sixty persons, who ‘have lately compounded and made over their right to a far less number . . . to about 18 or 20’.78 Thus was created an elite within an elite. That Sutton, the avowedly astute businessman, was persuaded to relinquish his interest in such a potentially lucrative lease is something of a mystery, unless he is considered as an interloper into Newcastle’s mercantile and industrial community. For Newcastle, of course, was determined to protect its interests against encroachments from outsiders. To that end, it had negotiated a statute in 1529 which provided that no person should ‘ship, load or unload any goods to be sold into or from any ship at any place within the river of Tyne, between the places called Sparhawke and Hedwinstremes, but only in the town of Newcastle’.79 In effect this gave a virtual monopoly to the citizens of Newcastle, especially ‘certaine principall persons of that Towne, called Oastmen, to whom it onely apperteyned to sell and convey Coles from that Porte into any other port or place within or without the realme’.80 It also spelt Newcastle’s triumph over the bishop of Durham’s ports at Gateshead and North Shields. Oastmen, or hostmen, were ‘free inhabitant householders to whom was assigned the duty of entertaining merchant strangers, of becoming answerable for their peaceful conduct, and of supervising the sales and purchases of their wares and merchandise’. The first reference to hosting in Newcastle was in the fourteenth century, but by 1600, and at their request, the ‘guilde or fraternitie commonly called Hoastmen, for the loadinge and better disposinge of sea coles and pitt coles’ (and certain other commodities), was incorporated by royal charter on 22 March.81 William Jennison led the original forty-eight members as their first governor. He served variously as alderman, mayor, sheriff and member of

76

For a lively account of Sutton and his coal-mine-owning enterprise, see Trevor-Roper, ‘The bishopric of Durham and the capitalist reformation’, Durham University Journal, ns vii, 2 (1946), 45–58. And for a thorough treatment of Whickham, see David Levine and Keith Wrightson, The making of an industrial society, Whickham 1560–1765, Oxford 1991. 77 Nef, The British coal industry, i, 150–4; Roger Howell, Jr, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Puritan revolution. A study of the civil war in north England, Oxford 1967, 23–4. 78 BL, MS Lansdowne 65, fo. 38. 79 Statutes of the realm, iii, 302–3. 21 Henry VIII, c.18. 80 HMC, Salisbury, v, 267, and see Dendy, Hostmen’s records, 9. 81 Dendy, Hostmen’s records, xiii, xxviii, 10–17. 38

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parliament for Newcastle. He was joined by Henry Anderson and William Selby, who held similar posts, as well as members of the Riddell, Chapman, Maddison and Liddell families, who were also prominent in the government of Newcastle. Sutton, finding himself seriously disadvantaged by his exclusion from the privileges enjoyed by the politically powerful Newcastle hostmen, no doubt thought it most prudent to cut his losses and bow out of the Newcastle coal trade. Newcastle’s position as the provincial focus of the north-eastern counties of the kingdom was reinforced by its function as the principal provisioning centre for those parts. Indeed, it was the town’s dual role as a market centre and as a port that was a major factor in its success.82 For example, the wealth of Newcastle in the fifteenth century was heavily dependent on exporting wool to the Low Countries and importing finished goods to supply its hinterlands. The merchants of Newcastle were a strictly regulated association with a long history. Their status as guild merchants was made explicit in a charter granted to the burgesses of Newcastle by King John on 28 January 1216, which confirmed the liberties and free customs that they had enjoyed in the time of his ancestors.83 By the reign of Elizabeth they were called the fellowship of merchant venturers, with an annually appointed governor assisted by twelve assignees, who were nominated in the charter the queen issued on 10 May 1559. They constituted another small and exclusive Newcastle elite, whose names continued to dominate the affairs of Newcastle throughout the period covered by this book. The first governor appointed by Elizabeth’s charter was Henry Anderson, and his assistants included Robert Brandling, Mark Shaftoe, Cuthbert Ellison, William Carr, Roger Mitford, Bertram Anderson and Oswald Chapman: all familiar names. Extracts from their records show that the merchants adventurers of Newcastle were involved in a huge amount of business. Newcastle, rather than London, as might have been expected, also supplied luxury goods, such as wine and spices. For instance, by the sixteenth century, according to the records, 94 per cent of Durham Priory’s wine came from Newcastle.84 In 1599, the fellowship ordained that no others could sell wine in the town, which they enforced, sometimes rigorously, by means of fines; while, in 1618, a sum of 12d was levied on every tun of wine brought into Newcastle, to offset the company’s debts.85 At the same time, Newcastle was increasingly the provisioning centre for the wider North, at least as far as

82

The customs accounts of Newcastle upon Tyne 1454–1500, ed. J.F. Wade (SS, 1995), 3. Extracts from the records of the merchant adventurers of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, ed. J.R. Boyle and F.W. Dendy (SS, 1895), xx–xxi, 281–2. 84 M. Threlfall-Holmes, ‘Durham Cathedral Priory: consumption of imported goods: wines and spices, 1464–1520’, in M. Hicks (ed.), Revolution and consumption in late medieval England, Woodbridge 2001, 141–58. 85 Boyle and Dendy, Merchant adventurers’ records, 57, 113, 123. 83

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NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Naworth Castle in Cumberland.86 Newcastle also usurped other functions that traditionally belonged to the capital. According to Sir William Brereton, who visited Newcastle in 1635, ‘this towne unto this countrye serves insteade of London, by means whereof the country is supplied with money’,87 for its great traders had become financiers for the whole of the North of England.

North-eastern elites and posterity Fuller’s declaration that the worthies of England ‘were of a place as of a time’88 is amply demonstrated by the county gentry and the Newcastle oligarchy in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, not least in that they were much exercised by the disposal of their mortal remains after they left this life. The importance they attached to the matter can be assessed in their wills, it being the most important concern (after the dispatch of their souls) to be dealt with. Of 170 wills which expressed their testators’ wishes in that regard, 142 specified precisely where they wished to be buried.89 In every instance but one, they declared their desire to be buried in their local parish church, making the decision entirely parochially driven. Of the remainder, thirteen left the decision to the discretion of their friends and/or family, such as James Pilkington, who was originally from Rivington in Lancashire, and may not have developed an emotional attachment to the north-eastern parts of the kingdom. Yet Richard and Brian Bellasis, of the long-established family of Morton in the parish of Houghton-le-Spring, did not make specific provision for their mortal remains either, although Richard’s mother, Margery, did elect to be buried in the parish church at Houghton, and Brian Bellasis was also buried there. Both Sir William Read and his son and namesake were buried on Holy Island, along with their wives and children, despite leaving the decision to their executors.90 No doubt friends and executors might have been expected to ensure that one’s final resting-place was among one’s family. Four testators preferred to rely on a higher authority, and willed that their bodies be buried ‘where it shall please God’ to take them, including Thomas Middleton, originally from Cumberland, Ralph Cole of Newcastle and Sir Cuthbert Collingwood of Eslington, Northumberland. Both Thomas Middleton

86 Selections from the household books of Lord W. Howard, of Naworth Castle; with appendix of documents illustrative of his life and times, ed. George Ornsby (SS, 1878). 87 Sir William Brereton, Notes of a journey through Durham and Northumberland in the year 1635, reprinted by M.A. Richardson, Newcastle 1844, 89. There had been a mint at Durham in the middle ages. And see below, Chapters 5 and 7. 88 Thomas Fuller, The history of the worthies of England, ed. P. Nuttall, London 1840, i, 73. 89 These are just a sample of wills that have survived in the Registry of the Diocese of Durham, published by the Surtees Society. Members of the county gentry made 100 of the 142 wills and Newcastle merchants and industrialists 42. 90 Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 8, 315, 337; (SS, 1929), 2, 31, 97.

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and his father were more concerned about the manner, rather than the location, of their burial, especially in the troubled and confused years when established religion and practices veered from one doctrinal position to another. In 1555, Thomas Middleton senior left instructions about the interment of his body, ‘as shall appertaine to th’order and custume of the churche and Christen buriall’; and twenty-five years later Thomas junior called for ‘all maner of dewties as lawe shall pemitt’, regarding his burial. The Middletons’ determination to hedge their bets seems to have been their more pressing concern. Sir Cuthbert Collingwood’s motivation for failing to designate his place of burial was quite different. His career had been riven by personal contradictions as he sought to serve both the crown and the Percy earls, which challenged his ingenuity to the full in 1569. Doctrinally, Sir Cuthbert was something of an enigma, being personally inclined towards Catholicism, but also closely allied to Protestant interests. His decision to leave his estates in Northumberland to his (recusant) son and heir, and retire to Durham, coincided with his resigning, disillusioned, as Eure’s deputy warden in the troubled year of 1596.91 In his will, made that same year, Sir Cuthbert styled himself ‘of Eppleden, in the county of Durham’, and desired that his body be buried ‘in the parish churche, where it shall please Almighty God to call me to his mercie’.92 This suggests his weariness with the complications he had encountered in this world, and an eagerness to be done with it. Others simply committed their body to the earth, from whence they came. Amongst those was John Gyll, who was taken ill in Northamptonshire, and Robert Swift, who, though born in Sedgefield, was styled as ‘from Lincoln’s Inn’. William Clavering left no instructions at all, having been killed in a border skirmish. And Henry Riddell, a Newcastle merchant, desired to be buried ‘in the great church at Elbinge’, near Danzig in Prussia, where he had made his will on his sickbed.93 Remaining in Germany appears to have been a deliberate decision on Henry Riddell’s part, for it was accepted practice in early modern England to delay the funeral in order to accommodate the return of a body from abroad for burial.94 But not only did he remember his host and hostess and their family in his bequests, he also made generous provision for his friends and family in Newcastle, as well as the poor, and he gave fifty pounds to Elizabeth Liddell, daughter of Thomas, to whom he had promised marriage. This seemed to conform to the general pattern followed by testators. For example, while Christopher Chaytor, of Butterby in St Oswald’s, Durham, was happy to make marriage alliances for himself and his family in Yorkshire, he

91

Watts, From border to middle shire, 97–8, 118; and see below, Chapter 4. Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 267–8. 93 Wills and inventories (SS, 1929), 186; (SS, 1906), 174; (SS, 1860), 151; (SS, 1906), 167. 94 Nigel Llewellyn, The art of death: visual culture in the English death ritual, c1500–c1800, London 1991, 15–16. 92

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NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

left bequests in his will to the poor of Newcastle, where he was born, and Durham, where he lived.95 Extant wills from women are much rarer. However, it appears that they always elected to be buried with their husbands. Ursula Brandling, for instance, originally from York, but married to Henry, mayor of Newcastle, chose to be buried in St Nicholas church, in Newcastle. And similarly, Sir Ralph Gray’s widow, Lady Dorothy, who had been born in Somerset, elected to be buried in the parish church of her husband’s family, at Chillingham.96 Margery Bellasis, the daughter and heir of Richard Errington of Cockle Park in Northumberland, continued to live at Murton, in Durham, for the remaining fifty-eight years of her life, after the death of her husband. Although some of her children, and grandchildren, married into Yorkshire families, she was firmly committed to her particular part of county Durham. She was commemorated in the parish church at Houghton-le-Spring for her devotion to hospitality and relief of the poor. And she willed that all friends and neighbours be treated to ‘an honest dyner’ on the occasion of her burial.97 For these women, the most important aspect of their posterity appears to be that they were appropriately memorialised according to their status within their community. It has been suggested that a ‘sense of community might have ceded to a sense of class whose bonds might lie contiguously within a geographical region or hierarchically within a certain economic sector . . . [which] would have dominated over any residual sense of place’.98 This survey of the socioeconomic interests and associations of the county gentry from Durham and Newcastle, and the merchants and industrialists of Newcastle, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, shows that they displayed just such tendencies. For, although they were not as conservative and inward looking as they were traditionally believed to be, their chief considerations appeared to be furthering the interests of their own socio-economic castes, rather than matters that were grounded in either the county or the region. In choice of marriage partner and contracting associated settlements the county gentry may have been less geographically constrained than their Newcastle counterparts. Yet the overriding concern of all of them was making advantageous matches, regardless of parochial or territorial factors. Other deals that ostensibly appear to have been aimed at retaining property to which there might have been an emotional attachment were motivated more by a desire to secure or extend one’s social and economic base. At the same time, ensuring political and commercial advancement took precedence over municipal loyalties, as rivalries

95

Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 203. Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 234; (SS, 1929), 169. 97 Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 315–16. 98 A.R.H. Baker, ‘Some terrae incognitae in historical geography: an exploratory discussion, in Baker and D. Gregory (eds), Explorations in historical geography, Cambridge 1984, 191 (his italics). 96

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between sectional interests within Newcastle clearly demonstrated. And finally, even after death, the elites of the north-eastern parts, and their wives, seemed to be principally concerned that their position achieved in life was suitably commemorated thereafter. What is clear is that the elites of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom were not the isolated and backward quasi-feudal northern gentry of myth. As well as the extent of urban/rural inter-penetration within the confines of the North East, they had connections which extended throughout England and onto the continent. They shared the values of their peers elsewhere, not least their preoccupation with maintaining and advancing their position both socially and materially. However, such concerns were intimately connected to the distinct structures and opportunities of a particular place. Their involvement in the commerce and industry founded on that location also contributed to their being more attuned to new economic opportunities than some other provincial elites. So that, while they were part of a larger elite, their claim to standing in the wider world was based on their position in the structures of a particular region. In other words, they are both generic and distinctive: the two are not mutually exclusive. This complexity of identity was also a feature of their socio-political activities, which are discussed in the next chapter.

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3

The governance and governors of north-eastern England It has been argued that, from the tenth century onwards, the English had a strong sense of regnal identity that was predicated on loyalty to a monarch from whom they derived justice and protection.1 In the sixteenth century this sense of Englishness was made more explicit, as church and state were fused, parliament devised new local structures designed to integrate England economically, socially and legally, and liberties and franchises were abolished.2 Traditional analyses of Tudor state formation have concentrated on the southern and eastern parts of England and concluded that their centralising policies were ultimately successful. A reassessment of this Tudor policy, however, has disclosed grave shortcomings. The abiding paradox faced by successive monarchs was that ‘[l]ocal conditions demanded a devolution of power, but political experience, ideology, and administrative practice all suggested increased centralization’. The imposition of the highly centralised administrative structures of lowland England on the borderlands led to serious and continuous tensions between central government and local political communities.3 How this manifested itself in the north-eastern corner of England is the subject of this chapter, together with an analysis of those who were prepared to serve their towns and counties in the capacity of local administrators and agents of central government. For, notwithstanding Braddick’s argument that regional identities must be sought outside the frames set by institutional records,4 the records can be investigated in such a way as to reveal something about the extent to which elites identified with their town

1 R.R. Davies, The peoples of Britain and Ireland, 1100–1400: II, names, boundaries and regnal solidarities’, TRHS, 6th ser., v (1995), 13. At the same time, the concept of a people is also ‘a carefully-cultivated myth’, which was largely the preserve of self-seeking elites. R.R. Davies, ‘The peoples of Britain and Ireland, 1100–1400, I, Identities’, TRH S, 6th ser., iv (1994), 2. 2 John Morrill, ‘The British problem, c1534–1707’, in John Morrill and Brendan Bradshaw (eds), The British problem, c1534–1707, state formation in the Atlantic archipelago, Basingstoke 1996, 6. 3 Steven G. Ellis, ‘Tudor state formation and the shaping of the British Isles’, in Ellis and Sarah Barber (eds), Conquest and union: fashioning a British state, 1485–1725, London 1995, 62, 44. 4 Braddick, ‘Elite formation and state formation’, September 2004 colloquium.

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and county and whether or not such identification involved any kind of regional dimension. At the same time, it should be noted that the medieval county of Northumberland – created out of the earlier earldom of Northumbria in 1377, which, in turn, emerged out of the ancient kingdom of Northumbria – embraced all those territories between the rivers Tweed and Tees. What emerged as county Durham was technically just one of the liberties within the county.5 Therefore, when early modern commentators remarked upon Northumberland, it is reasonable to suppose that, on occasion, they might be referring to all, or a swathe, of the two later counties, which continued to be regarded as a convenient whole by the central authorities.6 All this adds to the difficulties but also to the potential importance of getting to grips with the kaleidoscopic nature of the north-eastern parts of England, then and thereafter.

The political landscape of north-eastern England In 1569 the social and political landscape of the north-eastern parts of the kingdom was transformed. At the end of that year Charles Neville, sixth earl of Westmorland, and Thomas Percy, seventh earl of Northumberland, rebelled against Queen Elizabeth.7 Throughout the sixteenth century successive earls felt, with some justification, that they had been increasingly marginalised and their authority eroded in the North. Charles’s father and Thomas himself had been briefly restored to pre-eminence in the government of the North by Queen Mary but, with her death and the accession of Elizabeth, the challenge was resumed and they were driven to rebel. Although this rebellion became known as the northern rising, its failure to attract sufficient support in either Northumberland or Durham contributed to its early collapse. The earls fled to Scotland. The earl of Northumberland was returned to England and executed soon after, in 1572, and his eventual heir, while recovering the title and lands, was discouraged from returning to the North. The earl of Westmorland escaped with his life but his lands were forfeited to the crown and he died in exile on the continent. With the counties of Northumberland and Durham no longer dominated by the Nevilles and the Percys, the lesser peers and gentry filled the political (and social) vacuum. The way in which the accession of Elizabeth reversed the political fortunes of the northern earls and improved those of the north-eastern gentry was made 5 This point has been discussed by King and Pollard in ‘“Northumbria” in the late middle ages’. 6 The kingdom and county continued to be used interchangeably into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See Rosemary Sweet, ‘“Truly historical ground”: antiquarianism in the north in the long eighteenth century’, in Colls and Lancaster, Northumbria. 7 See, for example, Sir Cuthbert Sharp, Memorials of the rebellion of 1569, London 1840; M.E. James, ‘The concept of order and the northern rising’, P&P, lx (1973), 49–83; David Marcombe, ‘A rude and heady people’.

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most obviously apparent in Northumberland when the post of warden of the middle march was transferred from the earl of Northumberland to a Northumbrian squire, Sir John Forster, in 1560. He occupied the position of warden for thirty-five years, apart from a brief suspension in 1587–8.8 Most significantly, he was the first gentleman, rather than nobleman, to be warden. The west and east marches continued to be governed by lesser noblemen, Lord Scrope and Lord Hunsdon, respectively. There were wardens on either side of the border, for each of the marches – east, middle and west. The office had a long history, stretching back at least into the mid- to late fourteenth century, while the function was even older. In its initial form it entailed purely military duties which traditionally were the responsibility of the nobility. As these functions were modified and expanded, they came to include judicial and administrative obligations and powers, which were concentrated in the hands of a single official or warden, who continued to be chosen from the nobility.9 In addition, there were special commissions of both realms, nominated to deal with matters that were beyond the powers of the wardens. These extraordinary commissions acted only in a supervisory capacity, essentially to ensure that the system of redress, which underpinned the operation of march law, functioned effectively.10 An essential feature of march law – which was first codified in 1249, though altered, modified and developed considerably thereafter11 – came to be days of march or truce ‘rendering unique sentences of redress, reparation and compensation’.12 It involved a complicated procedure of ensuring that English and Scottish offenders against march law were tried by their own countrymen before being handed over to the country where the offence had been committed for execution of sentence. The process was initiated by exchanging written bills or accusations.13 Convening these days was the responsibility of the wardens on either side of the border, as was judging the bills. As the Tudors endeavoured to ‘grope towards the consolidation of a nation state’, governing the Anglo-Scottish borders ‘developed into a battle of wills between the crown and the Percys’.14 Then, in January 1537, Henry VIII 8

CBP, i, nos. 552, 554, 556. Rachel Robertson Reid, ‘The office of the warden of the march; its origins and early history’, EHR, xxxii (1917), 479–96; Thomas I. Rae, The administration of the Scottish frontier, 1513–1603, Edinburgh 1966, chs 3 and 4; Cynthia J. Neville, Violence, custom and law: the Anglo-Scottish border lands in the later middle ages, Edinburgh 1998, 20ff., 191, 193. 10 See, for example, the memorandum of agreement made by the commissioners in 1509. LP, Add., i, 42. 11 For a thorough treatment of the evolution of border customs and legal practices up to the sixteenth century, see Neville, Violence, custom and law. 12 Neville, Violence, custom and law, xi. 13 See Rae, The administration of the Scottish frontier, 48ff.; Watts, From border to middle shire, 32ff. 14 Steven G. Ellis, ‘A border baron and the Tudor state: the rise and fall of lord Dacre of the north’, HJ, xxxv (1992), 253–77. And see also Ellis, ‘Crown, community and government in the English territories, 1450–1575’, History, lxxi (1986), 187–204. 9

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resolved to ‘resume into his own hands the office of warden’ of the northern marches. He commissioned local gentlemen, Sir William Eure and Sir John Widdrington, as his deputies in the east and middle marches, respectively, as well as ‘three or five of the best men to give council with the deputy wardens’, ensuring a continued ‘local’ input into the government of the marches. Even so, a couple of months later, the privy council acknowledged that ‘the multitude of wild men upon the borders cannot be restrained by such mean men’ and that ‘some man of great nobility should have the rule’.15 Thomas Percy was restored in his family’s lands, title and the wardenship of the east and middle marches by Queen Mary in the 1550s,16 but it was a short-lived recovery of office, which did not survive her death. The vexed question of whether it was preferable to rely on officers with local knowledge, and concomitant partialities and prejudices, or on potentially neutral, but less wellinformed, ‘outsiders’ continued to exercise Queen Elizabeth and her government. The distinction between public responsibility and private interest was both obvious and blurred – demonstrated by the ‘monotonous regularity’ with which the assize judges were required to address the problem of separating public ‘bees’ from private ‘drones’.17 It was a predicament common to the whole kingdom, and central government adopted one position after another over how to tackle it. On the northern border, in 1595, Lord Burghley and the president of the Council of the North, Henry Hastings, earl of Huntingdon, inclined towards appointing wardens from without the factional Northumberland gentry.18 This marked a departure from the conclusion drawn earlier in Elizabeth’s reign that ‘the estate of Northumberland so standeth at this presente that none can occupie the office of the warden, but suche one as is naturallie planted in the countrye’,19 which had resulted in Forster’s appointment as warden of the middle march in November 1560. Within a decade of his appointment, Forster had achieved such a degree of hegemony in Northumberland that it was possible for him to be described as the most powerful man in the county.20 He had an extensive family network sprawled across Northumberland, and beyond, which was achieved through the marriages of his siblings and then his own children. His mother was the daughter of Lord Ogle, whose heirs came to be the only resident aristocrats in Northumberland after 1569. He was allied

15

LP, xii, i, nos. 225, 291, 636. His uncle was the sixth earl of Northumberland and his father was Sir Thomas, who had been debarred from succeeding his brother, following his involvement in the Pilgrimage of Grace. 17 J.S. Cockburn, A history of English assizes, 1558–1714, Cambridge 1972, 161; Hindle, The state and social change, 21–3. 18 Watts, From border to middle shire, 113–14. This is dealt with more fully in Chapter 4. 19 SP 59/1/50. 20 Maureen Meikle, ‘A godly rogue: the career of Sir John Forster, an Elizabethan border warden’, NH, xxvii (1992), 126–63. 16

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to the Swinburnes of Capheaton, the Carnabys of Hexham, the Herons of Ford and of Chipchase, as well as the Whartons of Westmorland (ennobled in 1544 after the battle of Solway Firth).21 In 1571 he married one of his daughters to Sir Francis Russell, the son of the second earl of Bedford, warden of the east march in the mid-1560s, and the other to William Fenwick of Wallington. His connections with the greater families in Northumberland certainly were impressive but it was his triumph over the earl of Northumberland that consolidated his position in the county.22 In Durham, the accession of Elizabeth made itself felt by the transformation of the clerical hierarchy. Until then there had been little apparent change in the ‘tranquil life of the Durham close’,23 but thereafter, the complexion of the ecclesiastical personnel came to reflect the political and religious views of the crown. They were also, increasingly, appointed from without Durham.24 For example, in 1561 James Pilkington, the newly installed bishop, selected William Fleetwood, one-time recorder of London, as his principal legal adviser,25 more than possibly on the advice of the queen’s principal secretary, Sir William Cecil (later Lord Burghley).26 At the same time, the changes in the composition of the Elizabethan chapter impacted adversely on the county gentry, for the prebendaries were recruited from a much wider area than the monks they replaced and they were drawn from higher up the social scale. Thus these were outsiders who regarded themselves as the social equals of the resident gentry,27 presenting a double challenge to them as a discrete and coherent entity. At a more tangible level, the chapter came into conflict with the gentry when it endeavoured to recover land, resources, arrears of rent and old debts from them. Families such as the Swinburnes of Chopwell, the Heaths of Kepier, the Salvins of Croxdale, the Tempests of Holmeside and the Hodgsons of Hebburn were targeted as well as the Nevilles, earls of Westmorland.28 Yet Michael Tillbrook has commented upon the fact that ‘[t]he Palatinate helped to create a marked sense of local consciousness and identity’ so that even when the multifarious local offices peculiar to the palatinate were 21 M.E. James, Change and continuity in the Tudor north: the rise of Thomas, first lord Wharton, York 1965, 30–1. 22 This was observed by M.E. James, Estate accounts of the earls of Northumberland, 1562–1637 (SS, 1955), xviii–xx. 23 David Marcombe, ‘The Durham dean and chapter: the old abbey writ large?’, in Rosemary O’Day and Felicity Heal (eds), Continuity and change. Personnel and administration of the Church in England 1500–1642, Leicester 1976, 129. 24 Marcombe, ‘A rude and heady people’, 122ff. 25 DCL, MS Sharpe 57, fo. 123. He was appointed ‘Escaeter’ by the bishop’s patent on 5 May 1561, and confirmed in 1565 and 1567. Pilkington also appointed him as his temporal chancellor, according to James, Family, lineage and civil society, 150. 26 A letter from Pilkington to Cecil in October 1561 implies as much. CSPD, 1547–1580, 187. 27 Marcombe, ‘Durham dean and chapter’, 136; ‘A rude and heady people’, 122. 28 Marcombe, ‘A rude and heady people’, 125–9.

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held by outsiders they would be ‘responsible and responsive primarily to local rather than national considerations’.29 In any case, such posts were more likely to be held by local men with the benefit of local knowledge and connections. Certainly, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the principal palatinate office of temporal chancellor tended to be held by a northern gentleman – such as Thomas Calverley30 – rather than a traditional clerical lawyer. So that, in respect of palatinate office holding, the repercussions of Elizabeth’s accession were not necessarily detrimental to the gentlemen of Durham. If the events of 1569 altered the position of the gentry, they also had implications for the bishop of Durham, who was the spiritual overlord of both counties Durham and Northumberland. The bishop of Durham retained an association with his diocese long since eroded in other bishoprics. Traditionally, the whole of the English episcopate was expected to play a part in the secular administration of their adopted counties.31 More unusually, the bishops of Durham exercised ‘regalian’ powers over the county palatine of Durham that had survived, more or less intact, up to the Act of Resumption in 1536, which transferred many of the palatinate’s privileges to the crown.32 Nevertheless, the image of the bishop as territorial magnate and feudal prince endured, most explicitly on the great seal of the palatinate, which depicted him fully armed and mounted on horseback.33 The correlation between preaching pastor, political representative and local administrator was more clearly manifest in the bishop of Durham than elsewhere. Thus, the distinctiveness of the bishopric of Durham was clearly underlined and reinforced as a consequence of its palatinate associations. It also placed the bishop more obviously in competition with the leading lay magnates in Durham, the Nevilles, earls of Westmorland. Any expectations that the bishop of Durham might have cherished to profit from the Nevilles’ misfortunes after 1569 were to be disappointed. Although he was the rightful recipient of the rebels’ estates in the county of Durham, the crown determined to offset the expense of suppressing the rebellion by taking all forfeited estates to itself, both within and without Durham. Pilkington’s abrupt departure from the county at the first sign of trouble justified the crown’s retention of the forfeitures, which was the legal argument advanced in the Act for the Confirmation of the Attainders of the Earl of Westmorland,

29

Tillbrook, ‘Durham, 1558–1642’, 124–5. DCL, MS Sharpe, fo. 127. Calverley was appointed ‘Seneshalli’ by the bishop’s patent on 12 November 1563 and confirmed in December 1563 and in 1564. 31 See Kenneth Fincham, Prelate as pastor: the episcopate of James I, Oxford 1990, 96–111, for the role of bishops in local administration. 32 Thereafter, and paradoxically, it appears that it was those bishops, such as Toby Matthew (bishop from 1595 to 1606), who operated most diligently as crown servants who managed to maintain or even extend palatine privileges. See Tillbrook, ‘Durham, 1558–1642’, 73–4. 33 C.H. Hunter Blair, ‘Post-Reformation ecclesiastical seals of Durham’, AA, 2nd ser., xxvii (1928), 165–78. 30

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Earl of Northumberland and others.34 Not only did this mean financial loss for the bishop and a challenge to his ‘regalian’ rights, but the ramifications of the crown’s disposal of forfeited lands might also impact adversely on the northeastern counties. Whether for reasons of self-interest, or else genuine concern for the well-being of his bishopric, Pilkington wrote to William Cecil, from London, on 4 January 1570. He advised him that ‘iff the forfeted landes be bestowed on such as be strangers & will not dwell in the cuntre, the people shall be without leaders, the cuntre desert, & no number of freeholders to doe justice’.35 Pilkington himself seemed to be in no hurry to return to Durham. A letter from the warden of the east march, Lord Hunsdon, to William Cecil from Berwick, in February, complaining that the only gentleman left in the bishopric was Mr Hilton, went on to point out that the bishop remained in London.36 The paucity of gentlemen was confirmed by Sir George Bowes, lord lieutenant of Durham, who informed the earl of Sussex, president of the Council of the North, that ‘there is great want of gentlemen gone from hence to the Court and London’ whose ‘return is thought the more requisite’.37 Of course, these were unusual times, but even in more settled periods, efforts to persuade the gentry to quit London and fulfil their obligations were a recurring and continual concern of central government. For example, it was a regular feature in the lord chancellor’s Star Chamber addresses to the assize judges before they rode their circuits, which were intended for relaying to the justices of the peace in the counties, and it was also the subject of royal proclamations. 38 But, notwithstanding Pilkington’s warnings in 1570 about the lack of local men to conduct local government, there was usually any number of men ready to engage in the government and administration of their counties. The surviving records for the Northumberland and Durham quarter sessions, from the mid1590s onwards, clearly demonstrate as much.39 For attendance records matched those from other counties in the kingdom. 34

On 19 October, Thomas, earl of Sussex, reported to the privy council that despite rumours of a ‘tumult’ he had heard ‘of no man of estimation gone but the Bishop of Durham and Sir Wm Pickering’. CSPD Addenda, 1566–1579, 87; Statutes of the realm, ed. A. Luders and others, London 1810–28, iv, 549–52. 35 BL, MS Lansdowne, 12, no. 29. 36 SP 12/17/76. The Hiltons of Hilton Castle were one of the richest and most influential families in county Durham, on a par with the lords of Lumley, the Bowes of Streatlam and the Eures of Wittan. 37 SP 12/17/83. 38 The first recorded Star Chamber address by the lord keeper, Sir John Puckering, 3 June 1595, included just such a charge. John Hawarde, Les reportes del cases in Camera Stellata, 1593–1609, ed. W.P. Baildon, London 1894, 20; see also the address by lord keeper Sir Thomas Egerton to the judges at the end of Hilary term 1604, Inner Temple Library, London, MS Petyt, 538, li, fo. 51; ‘A proclamation enjoyning all Lieutenants, and Justices of Peace, to repaire to their Countryes’, Stuart royal proclamations, ed. James F. Larkin and Paul L. Hughes, Oxford 1973, i, 44–5. 39 DRO, Q/S/I 1–8; NRO (Morpeth), QS1. 50

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The North of England was also subject to an additional layer of government: the Council of the North, which had been reconstituted in 1537. Its purpose was set out in its inaugural instructions that were to form the basis of all subsequent instructions thereafter. Its function was both administrative and judicial and it jurisdiction, which was roughly coterminous with the archbishopric of York, covered Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham and Yorkshire. Despite the privy council prevailing upon it to hold sessions in either Newcastle or Carlisle, it met almost exclusively at York, which sometimes had serious repercussions for the government of the borders.40 It also meant that the executive administrative and judicial centre for the north-eastern parts of the kingdom was shifted south of Durham and Northumberland to Yorkshire. In August 1572, the queen’s cousin, Henry Hastings, earl of Huntingdon, was appointed its lord president. According to his biographer, his ‘importance lies first and foremost in that he furnished a pattern to protestant peers’ and ‘[t]o know his religion is in a sense to know the man’. He was thus ideally placed to implement Elizabeth’s Protestant policies as her ‘viceroy in the north’.41 He clearly met her expectations, for in the final year of his life, after twenty-two years’ service, she commended him ‘to continue so serviceable to us as we have found you, and for such a one do and will esteem you . . .’.42 On the death of Huntingdon, on 14 December 1595, Matthew Hutton, archbishop of York, was appointed acting lord president of the Council of the North. He has been described as a ‘pliant’ client of the Cecils’ rival, Robert Devereaux, earl of Essex; 43 with the implication that factional manoeuvring at Whitehall impacted more directly on the government of the borders than was altogether desirable.44 But a more balanced assessment of Hutton reveals that he was far from malleable. He was prepared to stand up to anyone in defence of the godly commonwealth’s best interests – even the queen – and was ready to rebuke both Robert Cecil and Essex, equally, as and when he felt it was necessary.45 Also, it was William Cecil who had been instrumental in Hutton’s appointment as bishop of Durham in 1589 and they corresponded with particular cordiality.46 Hutton’s career path anticipated that of Toby

40 Rachel Robertson Reid, The king’s council in the north, London 1921, 177, 198, 229, 245, 249. 41 Claire Cross, The puritan earl. The life of Henry Hastings, third earl of Huntingdon 1536–1595, London 1966, xiii, xviii, 159. 42 Huntington Library, San Marino, California, USA, Hastings papers, HA 2540. Cited in Cross, The puritan earl, 195. 43 Essex’s sister, Dorothy, married the earl of Northumberland that year and, while the marriage was not particularly successful, the brothers-in-law remained on good terms. 44 Watts, From border to middle shire, 115. 45 Peter Lake, ‘Matthew Hutton – a puritan bishop?’, History, xlii (1979), 182–204. 46 DNB, xxviii, 357; The correspondence of Dr Matthew Hutton, archbishop of York, ed. J. Raine (SS, 1843).

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Matthew, progressing from dean to bishop of Durham and thence to the archbishopric of York, and their continuous association with the North and its north-eastern parts was valuable to its government. Lord Sheffield, president of the Council of the North, recognised that fact when he recommended Matthew to succeed Hutton as archbishop of York in 1606. For he made the point that their long experience of the North equipped them to deal with the particular problems of popery and apostasy there, that would ‘puzzle a novice’.47 This confirmed the conclusion drawn almost half a century before, about the efficacy of local government by those with local knowledge, which had resulted in Forster’s appointment to the wardenship of the middle march. It has been claimed that Hutton ‘perfectly exemplifies the complex dialectic that linked the centre to the localities . . . during the Tudor period’, which was crucial to bringing the area under closer government control. As a native northerner (albeit from Lancashire), he was committed to the Tudors’ centralising policies, to the extent that he has been described as exemplifying ‘the way in which national institutions . . . could integrate the local with the national and the national with the local’.48 Recent studies of ‘state formation’ have concluded that it was the willingness of local elites to implement national policies that helps to explain the strength of the state. Yet the relationship between the centre and the localities was not simply that of unquestioning obedience by local office holders to centrally determined directives. Braddick’s analysis of political authority in the early modern period concludes that the ‘absence of confrontation resistance does not . . . imply the absence of an effective restraining influence of the governed over their governors’.49 Nor can assumptions automatically be made that cooperation with central authorities necessarily overrode any sense of local distinctiveness that might be felt by the Northumberland and Durham elites. Finally, in one very important respect, the bishopric of Durham and the county of Northumberland, together with Cumberland and Westmorland, were different from the rest of the kingdom. Throughout Elizabeth’s reign they had been exempted from paying parliamentary subsidies, or contributing to privy seal loans, in return for their services on the borders, defending the realm from the Scottish enemy.50 The fact that there had not been an official Scottish enemy since the middle of the century meant that the unofficial Scottish enemy was regularly exhibited as evidence of the far North’s particular vulnerability, in the guise of the desperate marauders who preyed upon its

47

Fincham, Prelate as pastor, 26; HMC, Salisbury, xviii, 37–8. Lake, ‘Matthew Hutton’, 204. 49 See, for example, Kent, ‘The centre and the localities’; Braddick, State formation in early modern England, c1550–1700, Cambridge 2000; Braddick, ‘Administrative performance: the representation of political authority in early modern England’, in Braddick and John Walter (eds), Negotiating power in early modern society, Cambridge 2001, 187. 50 1 Elizabeth I, c21 and repeated regularly throughout her reign. 48

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inhabitants. In addition, the unruly nature of the northern counties’ residents was cited to reinforce this representation of an excessively beleaguered part of the kingdom. For, in order to continue the favourable financial terms they enjoyed with central government, it was crucial that the peculiar nature of those parts was regularly reiterated.

Office holding in north-eastern England It is some years since Clive Holmes argued that ‘the social milieu in which gentry families participated necessarily entailed their involvement in relationships and attitudes that were not enclosed by their county boundaries’.51 The preceding chapter in this book demonstrated that the elites of Durham and Northumberland engaged in similar relationships and embraced comparable attitudes. But, in respect of their administrative and governmental roles, the function of the county and urban elites was both described and circumscribed in terms of their county, when even the town of Newcastle was regularly denoted as the county of Newcastle. Either they represented their county in parliament (in Northumberland), or served as sheriff (which title, modified from reeve of the shire, was explicitly derived from the county), deputy lieutenant or justice of the peace. The motives of those seeking election as a member of parliament ranged from satisfying personal ambition to a desire for broadening the scope of their experience. But, above all, furthering the interests of their county or town in the House of Commons was the fundamental obligation of occupying a county or borough seat, as part of the symbiotic relationship between the localities and the centre. Members of parliament for Northumberland were drawn not just from the traditional county families. Alongside the Grays of Horton and Chillingham, the Widdringtons of Widdrington, and the Fenwicks of Wallington, were to be found the Careys, sons of the queen’s cousin, Sir Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. Thus, Sir Thomas Gray represented Northumberland, followed by his brother, Sir Ralph, and his nephew, Sir William. Robert Widdrington, his brother, Sir Henry, and his nephew, Sir William, all sat in parliament. The Careys followed a slightly different pattern, with William Carey sitting first for Morpeth before winning a county seat, as did his brother, Sir Robert.52 The town of Newcastle was generally represented by members of the company of merchant adventurers and then, increasingly, by members of the hostmen’s company. Accordingly, Henry Anderson regularly sat in parliament, following his father, Bertram, and was succeeded by his son, also Henry. This pattern of fathers followed by their sons was replicated in other

51

Holmes, ‘The county community’, 218. See Hunter Blair, ‘The members of parliament for Northumberland, 1559–1831’, AA, 4th ser., xxiii (1945), 106–14.

52

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families, such as the Jennisons and the Selbys (of Newcastle, as opposed to the Northumberland Selbys), while the Riddells, Sir Thomas and his halfbrother, Sir Peter, were elected to alternate parliaments throughout the 1620s. The Newcastle members tended to be denoted, rather anonymously, as the ‘burgesses of Newcastle’, such as when they were commissioned to discuss the confirmation of Berwick’s charter, along with the named members for Northumberland and Berwick, in 1604.53 The same week, the representative for Berwick, Sir William Selby, was also on the committee to discuss naturalising the Scottish Sir George Home and his family. Both members for Northumberland joined him when the confirmation of letters patent to Home was discussed.54 No doubt they were anxious to curry favour with Home, later earl of Dunbar. For he was one of the king’s most trusted servants, who was to become prominent in the government of the North, and its north-eastern portion, as lord lieutenant of the three northern shires and as a member of Northumberland’s commission of the peace.55 Encouragingly, an analysis of Commons committee attendance records reveals that Henry Anderson and Peter Riddell, members for Newcastle, were commendably diligent in King James’s last parliament of 1624. Of the sixteen members from constituencies throughout the wool-producing areas of England, commissioned to discuss wool exports, only the two members for Newcastle and three others turned up. And their record was considerably better than that of most of the forty-four who were named to confer about customers fees.56 This was more probably a determination to foster the interests of their own particular caste, than a demonstration of concern about the welfare of Newcastle. It is possible to find these elites moving between the court at Westminster, the county of Northumberland and the town of Newcastle, suggesting that the barriers between those worlds were fluid enough to accommodate the symbiotic relationship between the different elements. This facility appeared to be denied to the elites of county Durham, however, which was in the unique and distinctive position of having no parliamentary representation in the Commons until 1675. Access to the lower house was only possible for the Durham gentry if they were prepared to stand for constituencies outside their own county, such as the mercantile Selbys, who represented Newcastle. 57 Durham’s representative in the House of Lords was also somewhat distinctive, operating as both spiritual lord in his capacity as bishop of Durham and temporal lord for the palatinate. On occasion, juggling the responsibilities of palatinate, 53

CJ, i, 211, 212 CJ, i, 213, 228–9. 55 Bruce Galloway, The union of England and Scotland, 1603–1608, Edinburgh 1986, 85. 56 Chris R. Kyle, ‘“It will be a scandal to show what we have done with such a number”: house of commons committee attendance lists’, in Kyle (ed.), Parliaments, politics and elections, 1604–1648, Camden 5th ser., xvii, Cambridge 2001, 224, 217–19. 57 Hunter Blair, ‘The members of parliament for Newcastle upon Tyne, 1559–1831’, AA, 4th ser., xxiii (1945), 134, 136. 54

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bishopric and diocese impacted upon the bishop’s parliamentary obligations. For instance, in October 1597, bishop Toby Matthew had to appeal to Lord Burghley about the queen’s writ ordering attendance at parliament at the end of the month. He explained that he was heavily engaged in border matters, not the least of which was dealing with Lord Eure and his officers and ‘compounding of those differences bred and nourished betwene his L and the gent of Northumberland’.58 Thus was demonstrated the geographic range of his responsibilities. Bishops William James and Richard Neile – after the union of the crowns when, theoretically, the borders were no longer such a problem – were both influential parliamentarians. Neile, in particular, was frequently to be found on parliamentary commissions.59 He was also prominent in Durham’s attempts to secure parliamentary representation in the House of Commons. Traditionally, he has been viewed as being responsible for defeating the Durham franchise bills, in 1621 and 1624. But it has since been argued that he was much more likely to have countenanced reform as desired by the bulk of Durham’s gentry, rather than risk alienating his associates in the government of the palatinate.60 The members of parliament for Newcastle and Berwick were also involved in debating the question of parliamentary representation for Durham. In 1624, less than half of the forty-one members commissioned to discuss the matter put in an appearance at either of the two meetings convened for that purpose, whereas Sir Henry Anderson and Edward Lively, members for Newcastle and Berwick, attended both. The members for Northumberland attended neither.61 The fact that both Anderson and Riddell had bought estates in county Durham could explain their interest in a matter with which they could closely identify, and their support for the bill in the Commons,62 while Lively was a close friend and associate of bishop Neile.63 Yet, although one of the members for Northumberland, Sir Francis Brandling, was from Felling in Durham, and his mother was from one of the most influential Durham families, the Hiltons, he did not involve himself in a matter so crucial to the county. This was no doubt because his focus had shifted as a result of he and his father having bought extensive estates in Northumberland, while he was married to the sister of his fellow member for Northumberland, Sir William Gray, from Chillingham in the north of Northumberland. Thus is demonstrated the complexity of northern society, and the way in which interests were rarely drawn neatly along county lines. Nor were county affinities permanent. 58

SP 59/35/243, and see also Chapter 5. Fincham, Prelate as pastor, 60; Andrew Foster, ‘The function of a bishop: the career of Richard Neile, 1562–1640’, in O’Day and Heal, Continuity and change, 42. 60 Foster, ‘The struggle for parliamentary representation for Durham, c1600–1641’, in Marcombe, Last principality, 176–94. 61 Kyle, ‘Commons attendance’, 210–11. 62 Foster, ‘Parliamentary representation for Durham’, 176–201. 63 Foster, ‘Parliamentary representation for Durham’, 186. 59

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Neile was also instrumental in ensuring that the county of Durham was not overly burdened by the ratings for the privy seal loan issued in 1625, to which the county was now obliged to contribute. As lord lieutenant of the county, he drew up the original assessment, but complaints from Sir John Calverley and Sir William Bellasis that ‘the charge as it is . . . is very high considering the great poverty of the countrey’, led to the issue of a revised list.64 Their notion ‘that some other had a hand in it, that hath little consideracon and lesse knowledge of the state of the countrey’, given that they were Neile’s deputy lieutenants and must have been perfectly aware of his role, suggests a certain tactfulness on their part. It also hints at resentment arising from outside interference in Durham’s affairs. This concord between bishop and gentry, or ‘community of interest’, has also been cited to explain the lack of contention in Durham as a result of Neile’s Arminianism.65 This was despite the fact that he and William Laud, bishop of London, were to be the chief targets of the 1628–9 parliament’s drive against the perceived menace to the religious consensus posed by Arminian churchmen. As commissioners of the peace the gentry sat on the county bench, when they dealt with the full range of county business at quarter sessions. On occasion they might be joined by men of yeoman status who served with them as grand jurors. These self-styled ‘chief inhabitants’ in the parishes, who served as churchwardens, overseers of the poor, surveyors of highways, vestrymen and other parish officers, secured their local standing partly on account of their service to the community. Their status rested entirely on estimations made by those living within the settlement rather than on criteria from outside.66 Thus, the outlook of those at the lower end of the social elite was much more geographically restricted than that of the gentry whose perspectives and horizons fluctuated between their county and beyond. Membership of the commission of the peace is useful for identifying who were regarded as the principal residents in Durham and Northumberland. Yet simply consulting the surviving libri pacis for the nominal membership of those counties’ benches, some of whom were named by courtesy and others ex officio members, will not contribute very much to this study.67 Establishing who were the most diligent justices of the peace, by ascertaining who actually turned up to sit on the bench, is a much more reliable indicator of a willingness to serve the interests of their county.68

64

PGL, MS Mickleton and Spearman, 2, fo. 387; APC, 1625–1626, 453–6. Tillbrook, ‘Arminianism and society in county Durham, 1617–1642’, in Marcombe, Last principality, 202–19. 66 For a discussion of this, see H.R. French, ‘Social status, localism and the “middle sort of people” in England 1620–1750’, P&P, clxvi (2000), 66–99. 67 Also, lists of JPs were revised surprisingly frequently – up to ten times a year. Alison Wall, ‘“The greatest disgrace”: the making and unmaking of JPs in Elizabethan and Jacobean England’, EHR, cxix (2004), 312–32. 68 Thus, Tillbrook’s conclusion that ‘the ministers of the crown had at last been able to 65

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The surviving quarter sessions rolls for the period between 1596 and 1625 record the attendance of both justices of the peace and grand jurors at each session for which there are records. Northumberland record office holds a single volume containing copies of original indictments and presentments made by the clerk of the peace, which was found amongst a mass of unsorted papers which came into the possession of the clerk of the peace in 1823.69 Entitled the Vetera Indictamenta, the volume is in an early modern hand with presentments as well as indictments copied into it unsystematically. Unusually, indictments relating to gaol deliveries are also recorded, no doubt because the clerk of the peace acted as the clerk of assize’s deputy to save someone having to come up from York. They cover the period between 1595 and 1630, albeit with a gap between 1618 and 1627, which is neatly filled by material concerning public office in the Delaval papers in the Northumberland record office, which is most abundant for precisely those dates.70 Because the Vetera Indictamenta also registers the attendance of justices of the peace and grand jurors it is possible to use it in a similar manner to the quarter sessions rolls of Durham; while the Delaval papers include further details that indicate the most active justices. Northumberland was habitually described as being virtually ungovernable. Moreover, an anonymous and lengthy appraisal ‘concerning the abused government and afflicted estate of Northumberland’, written in 1597, specifically censured the justices of the peace who were condemned because they ‘appeare not at their quarter sessions in any due order, and often kepe non at quarter days’.71 Yet this calumny is not borne out by the surviving records in the Vetera Indictamenta nor in the Delaval papers, for they reveal that quarter sessions were held regularly and were as well attended as elsewhere in England. To a large extent this was the achievement of the custos rotulorum, Edward Talbot. He was the third son of the sixth earl of Shrewsbury and son-in-law of the seventh Lord Ogle of Bothal. On Ogle’s death in 1597, without a male heir, Talbot took up residence in Bothal Castle and became a diligent member of the magisterial bench, until he unexpectedly succeeded to the earldom of Shrewsbury in 1616, just two years before his death. ‘This unsung hero of Jacobean Northumberland’72 had also served as its member of parliament and sheriff. On one occasion, in January 1610, he was absent from the Northumberland bench and was to be found sitting with the ‘JPs in Durham and Sadberge’ and he was also named on the commission of the peace procure a working bench in Durham which reflected their preoccupations’ at the later stage of Elizabeth’s reign does not take into account that two of the four justices named to illustrate its Protestant complexion actually attended sessions only once in a thirty-year period. Tillbrook, ‘Durham 1558–1642’, 366. 69 NRO (Morpeth), QS1. 70 NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/7 fos 48ff. 71 PRO SP59/36/223. 72 Watts, From border to middle shire, 156. 57

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

for the West Riding of Yorkshire,73 but his overwhelming commitment was to Northumberland. Talbot’s attendance record was matched only by Thomas Middleton, esquire, of Belsay, who was a man of ancient lineage and some substance, and also served as sheriff of Northumberland, as had his father, Robert, before him.74 The Fenwicks and the Delavals were also hardworking members of the commission. Sir Willam Fenwick of Wallington – who also served as sheriff of Northumberland and was deputy warden of the middle march under his fatherin-law, Sir John Forster, in the early 1590s – attended gaol deliveries and quarter sessions regularly until his death in 1613.75 He was joined by his son, Sir John, at gaol deliveries and quarter sessions, who proved to be as assiduous a member of the bench as his father. At one meeting, in January 1609, Sir William and Sir John Fenwick were the sole justices of the peace at quarter sessions. Sir John was also deputy lieutenant for Northumberland, as well as becoming member of parliament for the shire, and sheriff.76 After the break in the records he reappears styled as baronet. Members of the extensive Fenwick family also made regular appearances on the grand jury. Sir Robert Delaval, of Seaton Delaval, sat on the magisterial bench together with his son, Sir Ralph, almost as frequently as the Fenwick father and son, until Sir Robert’s death in 1607. He, too, had undertaken shrieval duties and was also one of the border commissioners, together with his brother-in-law, Edward Gray, of Howick and Morpeth, and Sir William Selby, of Branxton, who were appointed by King James early in 1605.77 Sir Ralph Delaval followed his father as sheriff and served as deputy lieutenant.78 Sir Ralph (and presumably the county) also benefited from his father’s decision to send him to be educated at the Middle Temple, making him one of the few working members of the Northumberland commission of the peace to be legally trained.79 Others included Sir Henry Widdrington and Sir John Clavering,

73

DRO, Q/S/I 2 m.25B; SS, cxcix, 193, 348. Hunter Blair, ‘The sheriffs of Northumberland to 1603’, AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 89; Hunter Blair, ‘The sheriffs of Northumberland 1603–1942’, AA, 4th ser., xxi (1943), 6; AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 85. 75 A history of Northumberland, ed. E. Bateson and others, Newcastle upon Tyne 1893–1940, xii, 352; AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 85, 88; Hunter Blair, ‘The wardens and deputy wardens of the marches to 1603’, AA, 4th ser., xxvii (1950), 74. 76 AA, 4th ser., xxiii (1945), 111–14; AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 10. 77 They were joined by Sir William Lawson and Joseph Pennington, who were resident in Cumberland; AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 85, 88; HMC, Second report, papers and MSS of the earl of Crawford and Balcarres at Dunecht, 181–2; HMC, Tenth report, appendix 4, Lord Muncaster’s MSS, 229–30. 78 A history of Northumberland, vii, 171; AA, 4th ser., xxi (1943), 4, 7. 79 He was admitted on 1 June 1595 and joined his younger brother, John, together with Peter, son of William Riddell of Newcastle, later that year. Register of admissions to the honourable society of the Middle Temple, ed. H.A.C. Sturgess, London 1949, i, 68, 69. 74

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who attended Gray’s Inn and Middle Temple respectively.80 Sir William Selby, of Branxton, who also regularly attended quarter sessions, was educated at Cambridge.81 With the general gaol delivery always conducted at Newcastle and quarter sessions almost invariably held at Morpeth, it was probably no coincidence that the most assiduous justices of the peace lived closest to those towns. The distance of Chillingham, the home of Sir Ralph Gray in the north of Northumberland, from Morpeth could explain his poor attendance at quarter sessions, even on the rare occasions that they were held in Alnwick. For he contributed to county government in other ways, serving as sheriff four times, as well as sitting as a member of parliament, and he conscientiously endeavoured to implement the king’s instructions regarding ale-house licensing in 1618.82 Sir William Fenwick and Thomas Middleton took the trouble to travel north to attend sessions in Alnwick until Fenwick was in his sixties, when he was no doubt reluctant to make such a journey, especially in the middle of winter. Generally it was justices of the peace who lived in the vicinity of Alnwick – such as George Muschamp, of Barmoor, and Thomas Swinhoe, of Goswick, both of whom had a commendable record of attendance – who sat on the bench on those occasions. Muschamp was also pricked as sheriff of Northumberland.83 Unusually, Muschamp was to be found at a special meeting of Durham justices of the peace held on 23 April 1623. 84 Otherwise, only Thomas Riddell of Gateshead regularly served on the commissions of the peace for both counties Northumberland and Durham, sometimes at alternate sessions and on one occasion on both. He was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Conyers of Sockburn, near Darlington in the south of county Durham, thereby allying himself with one of the most ancient, wealthy and influential families in Durham. He was pricked sheriff of Newcastle, was mayor, and sat as the town’s member of parliament. He was knighted in 1616 and, after 1625, he became a justice of assize.85 A leading coal entrepreneur rather than a landed gentleman, he may not have been so circumscribed by county considerations. Moreover, although he was part of a very distinct, self-conscious and exclusive group in Newcastle, whose basis was entirely mercantile and urban, he did not feel compelled to adhere to Thomas Smith’s dictum – that townsmen were of no account in the county. Anderson and Selby also served as justices of the peace on the Durham bench. 80

Widdrington was admitted on 25 November 1590. The register of admissions to Gray’s Inn, ed. Joseph Foster, London 1889, 77; Clavering was admitted on 27 April 1608. Admissions to the Middle Temple, i, 90. 81 Alumni Cantab, iv, 41. 82 AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 86, 88; AA, 4th ser., xxi (1943), 5; NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/7 fos 56 and 57. 83 AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 88, 89. 84 DRO, CRO Q/S/I 7; Fraser (ed.), Durham quarter sessions rolls (SS, 1991), 296, 298. 85 AA, 4th ser., xviii (1940); Robert Surtees, The history and antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham, London 1816–40, ii, 128. 59

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The composition and complexion of Durham’s magisterial bench was somewhat different from that of Northumberland. To a certain extent this was because, as a palatinate and the administrative centre of the bishopric, Durham had a higher proportion of legally trained and university-educated personnel who were available to serve as justices of the peace. In this respect Durham was educationally more in tune with the rest of England and distinct from Northumberland. By far the most active of the Durham justices was Clement Colmore, chancellor of the diocese, followed by William James, dean and then bishop of Durham. They were both university graduates, while the temporal chancellor, Thomas Calverley, following long family tradition, was trained at Lincoln’s Inn. Calverley became chancellor in 1563, and remained in office for over forty years, was steward of Durham for almost fifty years from 1565, and was a justice of assize for Durham.86 Although he was originally from Yorkshire he had settled, as a young man with his family, in county Durham. Following the spoiling of his property during the northern rising he assisted in suppressing the rebellion by levying men in the bishopric for Sir George Bowes at Barnard Castle and he was involved in the defence of Newcastle.87 Thereafter he resettled in Durham and founded a dynasty of landed gentry who perpetuated the family’s involvement in the affairs of Durham. Thus, his son, John, following his training at Lincoln’s Inn, served on the magisterial bench, becoming custos rotulorum in 1615. He was a justice of assize in Durham, was knighted, and was deputy lieutenant.88 Traditional county families were thereby supplemented by newcomers who shared a clear willingness to identify with its interests. The masters of chancery, Henry Dethick and Robert Cooper, were other palatinate officers who were also diligent members of the magisterial bench; while bishop Neile’s spiritual chancellor, John Craddock, missed only four quarter sessions between his appointment in August 1619 and his death, eight years later; having sat regularly on the Northumberland bench, when he was archdeacon of Northumberland, until January 1618. The performance of these diocesan and palatinate officers was almost matched by members of the gentry with their more obvious county concerns and credentials. There has been some debate about the proportion of clerical justices on the Durham bench, but the question seems to have rested upon statistics from those named on the commission as they were issued.89 When

86 Thomas Calverley was admitted on 17 October 1552. A John Calverley had been admitted in Michaelmas term, 1465. The records of the honourable society of Lincoln’s Inn, 1420–1799, London 1896, i, 60, 16; Report of the deputy keeper of the public records, 1876, 68; AA, 4th ser., xlix (1971), 147–9. 87 CSPD Addenda, 1566–1579, 213. 88 He was admitted on 12 February 1590. Lincoln’s Inn, i, 60; DURH 13 /284; DCL, MS Mickleton and Spearman, 2, fo. 387. 89 Tillbrook, ‘Durham, 1558–1642’, 383–4, takes particular issue with K. Emsley and C.M Fraser, ‘The clerical justices of the peace in the north east, 1626–1630’, AA, 5th ser., ii (1974).

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levels of participation are examined, the resident gentry appear to have been very conscientious in the years for which there are extant records of attendance. The most eminent of these was George Scrope of Langley, to the north-west of the city of Durham. He was the son of John, eighth Lord Scrope of Bolton in Wensleydale, brother of Henry, ninth Lord Scrope, and uncle of Thomas, tenth Lord Scrope, who was married to a daughter of Lord Hunsdon, and was warden of the west march in 1593. Emmanuel, the eleventh Lord Scrope, was lord president of the Council of the North.90 Thus, his family was accustomed to governing the northern counties and, as he had attended Lincoln’s Inn in 1561,91 he was notionally as well educated as Colmore, James and Calverley. Given the proximity of his place of residence to Durham it is perhaps not surprising that Scrope’s record of attendance at quarter sessions was the most regular. However, John Featherstonehaugh, who lived at Stanhope Hall, some distance up Weardale, also managed to appear at quarter sessions with impressive frequency, even during the depths of winter. Yet, despite this record, Lord Eure, warden of the middle march, had to appeal to Sir Robert Cecil on his behalf when he was fined ten shillings by bishop Toby Matthew for failing to attend the Easter session in 1596.92 Traditionally the Featherstonehaughs had been servants of the bishop, who was lord of Weardale, in the capacity of keepers of Weardale forest,93 making this apparently unjust treatment by Matthew somewhat inexplicable. However, the fact that Featherstonehaugh was described by Eure as being virtually indispensable to him in the bishopric – at a time when relations were deteriorating badly between the warden and the bishop – could account for it. Alternative interests on the Durham commission of the peace were represented by Henry Anderson. Although he did not sit on the Northumberland bench, like that other significant entrepreneur, Thomas Riddell, Anderson was sheriff of Newcastle, alderman, mayor, and member of parliament. He was also sheriff of Northumberland and was knighted in 1603. 94 With his second wife, Fortuna, daughter of Sir Cuthbert Collingwood of Eslington, he had a son, also Henry, who followed him onto the Durham bench after his death in 1605. Henry Anderson junior served diligently, as mayor of Newcastle and member of parliament, before being pricked sheriff of Northumberland.95

90 The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom by G.E. Cokayne, ed. Vicary Gibbs and H.A. Doubleday, London 1926, xi, 547–9. 91 He was admitted, together with his brother, Edward, on 4 December 1561. Lincoln’s Inn, i, 69. 92 CBP, ii, 146. 93 PGL, MS CCB, B/21, 277863. Survey of Stanhope for 37 Elizabeth. The family steadily acquired lands throughout the sixteenth century. See fos 22ff. 94 Surtees, History of Durham, i, 122; AA, 4th ser., xviii (1940), 41, 42, 83, 94; AA, 4th ser., xx (1942), 87, 88. 95 AA, 4th ser., xviii (1940), 52; Watts, From border to middle shire, 186.

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It was members of the urban oligarchy rather than the traditional landed gentry who were to be found straddling the counties of Durham and Northumberland. Henry Anderson senior and his son were educated respectively at Gray’s Inn and at Oxford, making them educationally equal to the most assiduous of the remaining county gentlemen who served on the Durham bench. They were John Barnes, son of bishop Richard Barnes and clerk of the peace, who attended Middle Temple, and Sir Charles Wren of Binchester, just north of Bishop Auckland, who graduated from Oxford and then went on to Gray’s Inn, where George Lightfoot of Greystone was also trained. The incidence of legally trained members on the Durham bench was in stark contrast to the Northumberland commission. Ostensibly to address this problem, Eure wrote from Hexham to William Cecil, now lord treasurer Burghley, in 1596. He recommended Lightfoot, as ‘a lawyere of whome we stand great neede, whoe lyeth in the bushoprpricke, and none nearer hand’, there being no one on the Northumberland commission to advise the justices on legal matters or to give the charge at the quarter sessions.96 Soon after, Lightfoot was appointed clerk of the peace for Northumberland. However, this was much more likely to have been part of the crown’s drive to pack the Northumberland commission with justices from county Durham and North Yorkshire in anticipation that they would become active members and dilute the authority of the indigenous gentry. They did not, and the policy was abandoned within the year.97 Lightfoot last appeared on the Northumberland bench in 1604. The attendance record of these justices of the peace provides concrete evidence of their willingness to shoulder the arduous burden of business on behalf of their county, rather than simply enjoying the kudos of being named on the commission. Moreover, this was often undertaken simultaneously with other administrative duties, which clearly implied a very real commitment to their county and its welfare. Achieving the office of deputy lieutenant confirmed the prestige and standing of the county gentlemen, for they were generally drawn from the highest ranks. Bishop Neile was appointed lord lieutenant of Durham in 1617, the first cleric since 1558 to receive that distinction. Of his nine deputies three came from ancient and distinguished county families: Sir George Conyers of Sockburn, Sir Ralph Conyers of Layton, and Sir Talbot Bowes of Streatlam. A Roger de Coiners was ‘said to have been Constable of Durham Castle under William the Conqueror’, while Sir Talbot’s mother was Jane Talbot, aunt of George, earl of Shrewsbury.98 Sir William Bellasis of Morton, one of the deputies who had questioned the privy seal loan assessments in 1626, was descended from Richard Bellasis of Henknoll, near Bishop Auckland, who had managed to secure the under-rented lease of Morton

96 97 98

SP 59/31/1. Watts, From border to middle shire, 115; and see Chapter 5. Surtees, History of Durham, iii, 247–8, 37; iv, 107–8. 62

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Grange from Thomas Wolsey when he was bishop of Durham.99 Members of the family held various offices throughout the rest of the sixteenth century. The other deputy to query the assessment, Sir John Calverley, was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Calverley who has already been noted, while another deputy, Ralph Featherstonehaugh, was the eldest son of John Featherstonehaugh, also noted. The Newcastle oligarchy provided two further deputies, Sir Henry Anderson and Sir William Selby, whose families have been discussed above, which is just one more instance of synthesis between town and county. The ninth deputy was Sir George Freville, who came from Staffordshire, and was clerk of the ordnance to the earl of Sussex when he was president of the Council of the North, and was instrumental in crushing the northern rising. He settled on property forfeited to the crown after 1569, became a diligent servant of the county and was knighted in 1603.100 The practice of appointing the more significant gentry to the deputy lieutenancy seems to have been replicated in Northumberland. For example, in 1611 the office was held by Sir George Selby, Sir William Fenwick and Sir Ralph Delaval; while, in 1619, Sir Ralph was joined by Edward Talbot, Sir Henry Widdrington and Sir John Fenwick.101 They also served on the various commissions for the borders and then the middle shires (as King James optimistically termed them) that were appointed throughout the period covered by this book, together with the same gentlemen who were so diligent on the Northumberland county bench. Such commissioners were unique to the border shires of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland, conferring a distinction on all the northern counties, rather than the North East. However, a commission appointed for ‘the survyewe of the forts and castles upon the Borders’, in early 1581, which was drawn up by march, had those of the east and middle marches composed of exactly the same people (except for one), while the personnel on that of the west march were completely different. It could, therefore, be inferred that the interests, experiences and conditions of the east and middle marches were far more coherent than those of the west march. The commissions of the east and middle marches consisted of Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham, and Lords Hunsdon and Ogle, together with the chief gentlemen of Northumberland, including Sir William Hilton, Sir Thomas Gray, Sir Henry Widdrington

99

The jury conducting the parliamentary survey of Houghton-le-Spring in Durham in 1647 concluded that Richard Bellasis held Morton of the late bishop for a rent of £6 though it was improved to the value of £60. This was revised in a different hand thus: ‘we conceive it to be worth £90’. Even allowing for exaggeration and a hardening in parliament’s position, this was a very significant hike. PGL, MS CCB, B/164/11, 23383. 100 As his landed reward he was granted the manor of Hardwicke, forfeited by Anthony Hebborne of Hardwicke after he was attainted in 1570. Freville went on to acquire further lands. Surtees, History of Durham, iii, 34, 36. 101 NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/7 fos 43, 51. 63

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(senior), Sir John Selby, Robert Bowes, Robert Delaval, Thomas Calverley and William Fenwick.102 Many of those gentlemen were on a jury to investigate Lord Eure, warden of the middle march, and to effect reconciliation between ‘Evre & the gentl of that marche’, when relations had become impossibly strained in the late summer of 1597.103 Twenty years later, members of the same families were responsible for supplying information to a commission for the middle shires,104 suggesting a certain continuity of commitment to the area. For instance, Sir Thomas Gray’s brother, Sir Ralph, Sir Henry Widdrington’s son, also Sir Henry, Sir John Selby’s son, Sir Ralph, and Robert Delaval’s sons, Sir Ralph, Sir John and Robert, contributed to drawing up an extremely lengthy and thorough report. At the opposite end of the spectrum were the ‘riding surnames’. Also known as ‘rievers’ or ‘clansmen’, they operated a kind of ‘protection racket’ that was organised around kin-groups and extended across the length of the AngloScottish borders, to include Bewcastle and Gisland in Cumberland, as well as in Teviotdale and Liddesdale in Scotland.105 They were described as part of a configuration of ‘notorious robbers . . . and murderers . . . [who] lorded it with impunity’ in 1597; and of the murders recorded in the Vetera Indictamenta, all of those up to 1597 were committed by ‘surnames’.106 At that point, however, they went into rapid decline and their deadly activities were almost over, being responsible for only one of the subsequent eighteen murders perpetrated up to 1604.107 The north-western borderlands might have had to await the accession of James I, as the ‘decisive turning-point marking the beginning of the end of the centuries-old problem of the Borders’, and their subsequent pacification.108 But, by 1601, it has been argued, the ‘Northumbrian surnames were of little significance’; and the parliamentary act of that year, prohibiting payment or receipt of blackmail or ransom in the four border counties, ‘illustrates the timelag between the thinking of officials at Court and in Parliament and conditions in the field’.109 Nevertheless, the ‘rieving clans’ or ‘surnames’ did represent a problem that was unique to the border counties, especially in their upland parts, lending that part of the country a distinction up until the later sixteenth century, at least in the north-eastern portion. They were often barely distinguishable from the governing elites in respect of wealth and influence,

102

SP 59/21/23. SP 59/35/98; and see Chapter 5. 104 NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/7, fo. 48. 105 For a discussion of these in Northumberland, see Watts, From border to middle shire, 25–30, and for Cumberland, see R.T. Spence, ‘The pacification of the Cumberland borders, 1593–1628, NH, xiii (1977), 59–160. 106 CBP, ii, nos. 652 and 763; Ralph Robson, The English highland clans, Edinburgh 1989, 204; NRO (Morpeth), QS1. 107 NRO (Morpeth), QS1. 108 Spence, ‘Pacification of the Cumberland borders’, 58. 109 Watts, From border to middle shire, 27. 103

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thus illustrating the difficulties in differentiating between ‘sorts’ in early modern England, especially in its north-eastern parts with their particular social composition. In 1552, Northumberland ‘surnames’, such as Hall, Read, Hedley, Charlton, Milburne, Dodd and Robson, were found to be serving on a commission for enclosures.110 A little over half a century later, Halls and Reeds were grand jurors at gaol deliveries and at quarter sessions, while Edward Charlton and his nephew, William, sat on the magisterial bench. The three families were joined by the Robsons in being designated ‘gentry (with arms)’ in the catalogue from the time of Charles I.111 Societal differences within the elites of the north-eastern parts were thereby superimposed onto administrative divisions. In their capacity as sheriff, deputy lieutenant and justice of the peace the roles of the Northumberland and Durham elites were clearly demarcated by the boundaries of their particular county, albeit in a similar manner. The exception to this pattern was the rising urban oligarchy who were able to operate as comfortably in one county as the other. At the same time, the two counties’ government and administration embraced some distinguishing features. The elites of Durham, with no parliamentary representation in the Commons, were obliged either to formulate dynamics that compensated for this, which might foster a sense of singularity, or else to seek parliamentary seats representing other counties or boroughs, which could erode close identification with their county. The elites of Northumberland were atypical in that they were required to police the international frontier between England and Scotland. However, these obligations fell equally on the shoulders of the gentry of Cumberland and Westmorland. This made for another configuration in the far northern reaches, that of shared interests amongst those living in and responsible for their upland parts, which also extended southwards into the western portion of county Durham. All of which adds to the mosaic of subregions that made up the north-eastern corner of England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

110 111

Robson, The English highland clans, 199. See NRO (Morpeth), QS1; BL, MS Lansdowne 865, fos 88ff. 65

4

North-east elites and the crisis of border government This chapter looks at how contemporaries regarded the north-eastern corner of England, which, from at least the fourteenth century, and into the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, was consistently portrayed in negative terms.1 In particular, it was maintained that the far north of Northumberland, together with the western parts of Durham, was unusually subject to external threats, whilst also being virtually ungovernable. But how did central government respond to these characterisations, especially in the troubled 1590s, when the country was simultaneously facing economic distress and involved in expensive foreign wars? Then, in March 1603, the northeastern parts were fundamentally affected by the accession of the king of Scotland to the throne of England, for, at a stroke, the border between the two sovereign states of England and Scotland was set to vanish. King James made plain his perception of the changed status of the borders in one of his final charges to his Scottish privy council before he left for England on 5 April. He declared that ‘the pairt of baith the cuntreyis quhilk of lait wes callit the “Mairches” and “Bordouris” and now be the happie unioun is the verie hart of the cuntrey’.2 For those required to govern the north-eastern counties it was envisaged that their role would be transformed from one of policing a troublesome international frontier to that of administering a peaceful heartland.

Policing the frontier The North, especially the far North, had long been conceived in terms of its proximity to Scotland: indeed, this was probably its single most defining feature. But, despite the Tudors’ efforts at state formation and reform, Queen Elizabeth was faced with a decline in standards of border defence at the end

1

See Anthony Goodman’s ‘Introduction’ to Anthony Tuck and Anthony Goodman (eds), War and border societies in the middle ages, London 1992, 22–3. 2 The register of the privy council of Scotland, ed. John Hill and others, Edinburgh 1877–98, vi, 560. 66

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of the sixteenth century.3 Although this was largely a consequence of economic and tenurial change,4 it was cause for concern and was often linked by the central authorities to the particular nature of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. On 3 September 1585, Queen Elizabeth herself drew attention to its diabolical character, when she issued a warrant to inquire into the events at a day of truce, held at Cocklaw, in the middle march, on 27 June. There, Francis, Baron Russell, son of the earl of Bedford, ‘by devilishe and sinister practises and devises [was] then and there most horribly murdered’.5 It was an act that was especially unnatural, and doubly unlawful, violating both civil and divine law. And it confirmed southern perceptions of the far North, perceptions that were reinforced by regular reports from royal officials to the government and the crown. For instance, in 1580, the lord president of the Council of the North, the earl of Huntingdon, had sent up a written account of the state of the borders.6 It concentrated on the ‘decay of the service’ on the borders, which he attributed to several causes, in particular the long period of peace with Scotland, which meant that many landlords had ‘utterlie forgotton the necessitie of kepinge able men and furniture’ (military equipment) for assuring the area’s welfare. In the same year, the queen’s secretary of state, Francis Walsingham, had twenty closely written pages drawn up about conditions on the borders.7 Walsingham, who was closely identified with the security of the realm, paid particular attention to the state of the castles and fortresses on the borders, especially those in need of repair. The list was long, and included the strategically important border castles at Berwick and Norham, as well as coastal castles at Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh. Another memorandum, in 1584, also compiled for Walsingham, was briefer but no less critical about the defences on the borders.8 But the security of the realm was not the only matter that exercised the central authorities. An ‘abstract of the causes of the decayes of tenancyes and services upon the borders’, also in 1584, found that it was the recurrent threat from the Scots, compounded by the shortcomings of its inhabitants, that was to blame.9 In 1579, the privy council had expressed their concern about a recent ‘outeraige’

3 Robert Newton, ‘The decay of the borders: Tudor Northumberland in transition’, in C.W. Calkin and M.A. Havinden (eds), Rural change and urban growth, 1500–1800: essays in honour of W.G. Hoskins, London 1974. 4 See Robson, The English highland clans, 215–16. 5 BL, MS Add. 32657, fo. 179. 6 SP 59/20/194. 7 SP 59/20/198. Brought up in the household of Lord Hunsdon (albeit before his term as governor of Berwick and warden of the east march), Walsingham did have tenuous connections with the north-eastern parts of the kingdom. His patron was Francis Russell, earl of Bedford, father of the ill-fated Francis, who was married to Juliana Forster, daughter of the warden of the middle march, Sir John Forster. 8 SP 59/23/82. 9 SP 59/23/90.

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committed by the Scots and, of the three causes for the ‘decay’ of the borders in 1584, two of them concerned the ‘spoils’, ‘stealths’ and ‘incursions’ perpetrated by the Scots. Further accounts included ‘daily murders by Scots’, as well as ‘men laymed by others of the Scots’ and further ‘Insolencyes and Rapin of the Scots’.10 But underpinning the border officers’ consternation about Scottish outlaws trespassing into England was their deep-seated mistrust of the native borderers. In 1580, Huntingdon had reported that some of the English were letting tenements to Scots, while others were selling horses to them, in contravention of the law. Worse, they were considered as duplicitous and selfserving with no regard for the interests of the area and, by extension, the kingdom as a whole. Walsingham, for example, had been unconvinced by Huntingdon’s reassurances from Newcastle that he had ‘won all sorts to embrace her Majesty’s government’, in March 1581. He responded that, I fear a great number of those which make now a good show of liking the present state would be found very dangerous and doubtful in obedience upon any such occasion as the obstinate papists expect, of foreign aid and of return of such fugitives as were in the last rebellion, having Scotland to friend.11

It was a long-standing problem. Exactly two centuries before, the inhabitants of the liberty of Hexhamshire were being castigated by ‘the Westminster chronicler’ for ‘distaining to protect their homeland against the wiles of the enemy’, in the autumn of 1385.12 The temporary acting governor of the middle march, Lord Hunsdon, was in no doubt where the borders’ weakness lay in the troubled months following the execution of Mary, queen of Scotland, in 1587. Either from genuine offence, or sheer opportunism, Scottish incursions into England had escalated to the extent that Huntingdon, as lord lieutenant, had provided first 200 and then 300 horse, for their defence, which were due to arrive in Newcastle in late November.13 ‘Shewerly my Lorde,’ Hunsdon wrote to Burghley that month, ‘I do find that if the gentilmen coulde be broughte to ryse to frayes and to do their duties, her Matie needded not to be att theis greate chargis.’ He reserved his severest strictures for William Ridley of Willimontswick and John Heron of Chipchase, keepers of Redesdale and Tynedale respectively, who failed to relay warnings of imminent Scottish raids to the appropriate quarters.14 As well as their neglect in warning against Scottish raiders in the

10

APC, 1580–1581, 40–1; SP 59/23/90; HMC, Salisbury, v, 493–4; SP 59/32/4, SP 59/31/294, SP 59/30/117. 11 HMC, Hastings, ii, 26–7, 29. 12 The Westminster chronicle, 1381–1394, ed. L.C. Hector and Barbara Harvey, Oxford 1982, 138–9. And see Goodman, ‘Introduction’, in War and border societies in the middle ages, 22–3. 13 APC, 1587–1588, 233–4, 273, 274. 14 SP 59/25/196; BL, MS Cotton Titus F xiii, fo. 249. Five years later, Forster was accused 68

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late autumn of 1587, and perhaps more seriously, William Ridley and John Heron had disregarded instructions to tackle the notoriously lawless Liddesdale area across the border in Scotland. Had they complied, it was argued, it would ‘have given Riddisdale suche an overthrowe as England would a bene quiett for them this yere’.15 But the keepers of Tynedale and Redesdale had good reason to ignore such orders. For they were functioning in the heart of the upland area that was in thrall to the ‘riding surnames’, otherwise known as ‘rievers’.16 In fact, those particular borderers were regarded similarly by both the Scottish and English authorities. Just as the English privy council had ordered Hunsdon to ‘suppresse certaine disorders commited by the broken men upon the Bordiers’ in 1575, the Scottish earl of Mar was ‘chargeit . . . for furnishing of horsmen to suppres the thevis and brokin men inhabiting the Bordouris’, in 1579.17 Thus, a clear distinction was drawn between the ‘broken men’, or outlaws, and borderers as a whole, which was understood on either side of the border. It also demonstrates societal divisions that were superimposed onto the geographical and administrative sub-regions of the north-eastern parts of the kingdom. The native border officers had their own particular mechanisms for obtaining intelligence across the borders. Forster had assured Burghley that the rumours, relayed to him via London, concerning alleged Scottish activities, were not confirmed by his informants in Scotland, as had his counterpart on the west march, Sir Richard Lowther, who dismissed the ‘bruites’ of an intended incursion as misconstrued rumours. In 1585, Henry Widdrington sent Burghley ‘such occurences as I am informed of out of Scotland’, which included details about the movement of the Scottish king and his nobility, as well as general gossip and information.18 This was a facility that was unlikely to be available for outsiders, and it underlined the distinctive nature of the entire northern borders, which depended on personal experience and contacts to be governed effectively. Concord between the English and Scots was a delicate matter, which required careful handling, and was best achieved by those familiar with the traditions and mores of border life. It therefore followed that imported officers, endeavouring to comply with central directives, might have difficulty in coping. Not the least of their problems was discerning those for whom they were responsible, when ‘outlawes scottyshe (or scottishe imitating)’ complicated the task, as English miscreants exploited the peculiar conditions obtaining on the borders, by skipping from one jurisdiction to the other.19

of similar omissions when he failed to react to rumours of Scottish incursions, transmitted to him by Burghley; SP 59/27/205. 15 BL, MS Cotton Titus F xiii, fo. 249. 16 See above, Chapter 3. 17 APC, 1575–1577, 47–8; HMC, Mar and Kellie, ii, 33. 18 SP 59/27/203; BL, MS Lansdowne 45 no. 3. 19 SP 59/30/131. 69

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The far northern parts of England were also subject to quite distinct laws, jurisdictions and customs which incomers often found difficult to fathom. Of course, central government was well aware of this, as the preamble to a proposed ‘act for march treason’ in 1581 made clear: fforasmuch as march treasons on the borders over against Scotland being capitall crymes, are lawes of tradition only, unwritten, and not the same in all ages, nor the same at this daye in all the wardenries as they ought to be, but full of ambiguities and uncertainty, subject to the variable opinions of the wardens and borderers whereby the lives of subjectes are brought in danger by lawes not always, nor in all the wardenries at one time taken for lawes, and therefore such as the subiect canot reasonablie take notice of, for remedy whereof, may as well direct and warrant the Judge in his sentence, as deliver iust punishment to the offender.20

The abiding dilemma faced by the government about the relative advantages of appointing natives or outsiders to positions of authority in the localities was magnified in the northern borderlands.21 For there, the crown was especially dependent on officers with local knowledge. The problem was further exacerbated when the wardens could not be relied upon to cooperate fully with central government’s demands. For example, in response to the council’s instructions for musters in 1580, Sir John Forster explained that he could not provide evidence for the difference between that muster and the one from twenty years before. Disingenuously, he informed them that ‘the books were stolen in the late rebellion’,22 an excuse that could only emanate from that part of the realm. Accordingly, when the formal act of parliament, ‘for fortifying the borders’, was passed in 1581, it empowered the crown to appoint special commissioners to assess and redress the decay of service. It also gave them the authority to expel defaulting tenants. Not unnaturally, that aspect of the bill provoked strident protests from the northern landlords. They resented the inference that they could not be trusted to manage their own tenantry, and presented a series of objections to the bill, which stressed the danger of curtailing their power in dealing with their tenants. The actual act provided that the commissioners could survey and report on the state of the service and recommend improvements.23 At this stage, central government still seemed inclined to believe that the northern gentry were the best agents to ensure the security of the realm. Even in periods of crisis – such as that following news of a papal expedition with Spanish reinforcements, dispatched to support the rebellious Irish in

20

SP 59/21/14. See above, Chapter 3. 22 SP 59/20/115. Even so, musters were held that year and certificates returned to central government for both the east and the middle march; SP 59/20/82, SP 59/20/92. 23 SP59/10/240, SP59/20/16; 23 Eliz 4, Statutes of the realm, iv, pt i, 663–7; Watts, From border to middle shire, 30–1. 21

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1580 – they maintained their confidence in the native officers. The privy council exhorted the earl of Huntingdon and all three wardens to look to the government of the borders, and the bishop of Durham to execute the ecclesiastical commission against recusants.24 Throughout 1580, preparations had been underway to levy troops and horses against expected trouble from Scotland. But, most significantly, the council instructed the earl of Northumberland not to exercise the attaint he had recently obtained, which procured process for forty-eight gentlemen to go to London to support his case against the earl of Bedford.25 They advised him that it would result in the ‘unfurnishing of the countreye . . . [when] the loose and disordered people upon the Borders wilbe the bolder in their absence to attempt sumwhat to the disquietnes of those partes’. Thus, they recognised the crucial role played by the resident gentry in policing the borders and maintaining order in an area subject to the menace posed by the ‘reiving clans’ and ‘broken men’ who operated there. And so it continued, until 1595. That August, Toby Matthew, bishop of Durham, together with judges Beaumont and Drewe, in Durham for the assizes, and Ralph, Lord Eure, wrote to the earl of Huntingdon.26 The purpose of this letter was to express their concerns about the deplorable state of counties Durham and Northumberland where both English and Scottish outlaws ‘conspired together to make this Busshoprick of Duresme an open spoile and prey to the utter impoverishing and undoing of the poorer sorte, and to the Endangering of such persons of the better sorte’. They put the blame for this state of affairs squarely upon the wardens of the west and middle marches, thereby conjoining the highland parts of the borders as quite distinct from the more peaceable east march. Three courses of action were proposed. First, that the privy council be persuaded to direct the wardens to execute their offices with ‘extraordinarie care and diligence’ whilst also undertaking to supervise those officers answerable to them more closely. Second, that the privy council provide a company of well-furnished men for the better policing of those ‘ill-disposed neighbours from Northumberland, Comberland, Westmorland and this county’. The bishop, judges and Eure, quite clearly, identified two distinct sub-regions within the north-eastern parts of the realm: the one corresponding with lowland Durham (and Northumberland); the other with the upland or western parts of the county, in cahoots with the highlanders of Northumberland, as well as with those of Westmorland and Cumberland. Their final recommendation was that the justices of the peace be required to perform their judicial obligations ‘according to the Termes of their leases and Estates granted to them’. In other words, that they fulfil their concomitant responsibilities in return for the favourable terms upon which they held their land.

24

APC, 1578–1580, 5–6, 248, 301–2, 493; APC, 1580–1581, 40–2, 59, 125, 239–40, 300–1, 313, 318. 25 APC, 1580–1581, 351, 359; APC, 1581–1582, 24, 193–4. 26 SP 59/30/117. 71

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They described the area that was causing them such concern as ‘these remote parts’, thus emphasising their distinction from the lowlands of the ‘bishopric’. Five days later Ralph Eure wrote, as ‘one principall subiecte in this land yt concerneth’, to Burghley. Adopting a rather more sensational tone, he acquainted him of the ‘distress, calamity, pyttifull complaints, which the cryes of wydowes and fatherless children, even to the skyes in this bushopricke of Durham, by the great theifte, intolerable sufferance of Northumberland, and the weaknes or rather dastardie (if I may so tearme yt) of the inhabitants there’.27 He went on to paint a picture of an area where the normal processes of law had broken down completely and pleaded with Burghley to provide some ‘speedie redresse’ for the consolation of the ‘comfortless and distressed people’ who were suffering at the hands of those from Northumberland’s highlands. That it was the bishop of Durham who spearheaded this criticism of the march wardens’ performance was not surprising. Toby Matthew had been dean of Durham since 1583 and was therefore familiar with the diocese but, in the summer of 1595, as the newly appointed bishop, he was no doubt anxious to demonstrate his conscientiousness in preserving the queen’s peace. So it was not only in his capacity as guardian of the spiritual welfare of Northumberland’s inhabitants that he reported on its ills but also as an experienced administrator. As an ex officio member of the Council of the North – to which, technically, all the county officials of Northumberland were subordinate – he addressed his concerns to its president, the earl of Huntingdon. But Huntingdon was also Matthew’s mentor and they shared many views, especially regarding Catholic recusancy in the North. The association of recusancy with disorder was axiomatic to both Huntingdon and his protégé who were busily engaged in a programme of persecuting Catholics in county Durham that had recently been extended to include Northumberland.28 The reason for Eure’s participation in the drive to tackle the lawlessness on the borders, on the face of it, might be slightly more difficult to determine. Certainly, his family had been associated with the region around Warkworth in Northumberland since the thirteenth century, when the lord of Warkworth’s younger brothers took the name of Eure (after their father’s manor in Buckinghamshire) as their surname.29 Over a period of three hundred years the Eure family had established itself solidly in the north-eastern counties of England, both territorially and as prominent office holders.30 But, although he was born in Berwick Castle, Ralph Eure had not lived in Northumberland for many years. When he wrote to Burghley it was from the Eures’ Ingleby

27

SP 59/30/131. Watts, From border to middle shire, 78–80; and see below, Chapter 6. 29 Bateson, History of Northumberland, 27. 30 See The Victoria history of the county of York: North Riding, ed. William Page, London 1914–25, ii, 245; i, 533; Bateson, History of Northumberland, v, 242–3. 28

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estate in Yorkshire and his career had been focused almost entirely upon that county. He was vice-president of the Council of the North, member of parliament for the county of York in 1584–6, and sheriff of the same county in 1593–4.31 And despite alluding to his far-northern affiliations, the tone of Ralph Eure’s letter to Burghley suggests a certain detachment regarding the area, which he commented upon as if he were an outside observer. Like Bishop Matthew, he was closely linked with Huntingdon regarding his religious position, for, in a family often associated with Catholicism, Ralph Eure was a committed Protestant who demonstrated the fact by actively promoting Puritans to desirable livings within his gift.32 He also shared Huntingdon’s ambitions to bring Northumberland and the border wardenries more firmly under the direct control of the Council of the North33 – a move that, in effect, would further diminish Northumberland’s autonomy over its own affairs. The information from Matthew, Eure and the assize judges simply confirmed a state of affairs in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom of which Burghley, together with the privy council and the queen, was very well aware. Just two weeks before, the council had written to the warden of the middle march, Sir John Forster, with the stark warning that, if his performance did not improve, he would be replaced.34 A couple of days later Burghley was busy ascertaining who were the principal men in the middle march,35 possibly with a view to selecting a replacement for Forster of sufficient calibre to sort out the chaotic situation there. It would seem that no resident Northumbrian gentleman was deemed suitable for promotion to the office of warden, however, for on 1 September Burghley wrote to Eure nominating him as the ‘speedie redresse’ to succeed Forster. Eure replied the day after receiving Burghley’s letter, expressing his pleasure at the lord treasurer and the queen’s goodwill towards him and then, rather ingratiatingly, declaring that he was ‘terrified greatlye to undertake so greate a charge knowing myne infinite wants’.36 He made plain his unfamiliarity with the area beyond his understanding that most of the Northumberland gentry were associated with the Scottish outlaws either by marriage, by ‘tryste’, or by some other agreement to ensure the safety of their persons and their goods. To that end, he was anxious that he be provided with a house that would be ‘safe and fittinge’ for him as he endeavoured to ‘reforme

31 Complete peerage, v, 181–2. He appears to have left little trace of his performance on the Council of the North: see Reid, The king’s council in the north. 32 An example of this was his campaign from 1595 to 1597 to secure Simonburn, the richest living in Northumberland, for Robert Crackenthorpe, his chaplain and tutor to his son, who was a noted Puritan preacher. See Jane Freeman, ‘The distribution and use of ecclesiastical patronage in the diocese of Durham, 1558–1640’, in Marcombe, Last principality, 163–5. 33 Watts, From border to middle shire, 114. 34 Draft corrected by Burghley, 20 August 1595. SP 59/30/143. 35 SP 59/30/174. 36 SP 59/30/162.

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thes abuses in the inland gentlemen if they have combined with the outlawes’. He appeared to be adopting almost a siege mentality regarding the wardenry and, at this stage, seemed to be more concerned with the shortcomings of those among whom he would be required to operate rather than with trying to reach some kind of accord with them. And although he did recognise the distinction between the highland (or inland) parts of his wardenry and the rest, nevertheless, he was inclined to regard the whole area with the same jaundiced eye. Northumberland’s predicament, especially as it affected the middle marches, continued to occupy Burghley’s attention over the coming weeks. It featured in his own scribbled notes of his agenda alongside such weighty matters as those pertaining to ‘Irland cawses’, where England’s occupation of Ireland was subject to a series of serious challenges.37 Notwithstanding his busy schedule, Burghley had found time to address the question of accommodation for the new warden. In a letter from Forster to Burghley acknowledging his endorsement of Eure, the old warden explained (with regret) that his own house, formed out of the priory at Hexham, was quite unsuitable for the new warden. He recommended that Morpeth Castle would be much fitter, given that it was better furnished and ‘lies in the heart of Northumberland’, thereby, rather pointedly, demonstrating his superior knowledge of the district, as a resident of eighty years or so, to an appointee from another county.38 Eure’s delay in taking up his new post in the late autumn of 1595 was a cause of concern for Forster who was caretaking the march, which, he reminded Huntingdon, he was undertaking as a personal favour to him. He described how his authority was being undermined by the common knowledge that he was being replaced, which was encouraging ‘evil people of both realms’ to commit more spoils on the borders than ever before. He also reported – rather belatedly, given the complaints from Matthew and Eure regarding his dereliction in respect of observing days of truce – that he had, just recently, held two days of ‘trews’.39 But this was too little too late. Forster was informed by the privy council on 1 November that the middle marches were to be subject to the scrutiny of a commission ‘to inquire and examine in what state that Wardenry shalbe left by you’.40 Eure’s tardiness in removing to Northumberland, meanwhile, was

37

SP 12/253/113, SP 12/254/1. HMC, Salisbury, v, 415. This apparent reluctance to accommodate one who might be perceived as an interloper had precedents going back at least half a century. See Sir Ralph Sadler, The state papers and letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, ed. A. Clifford, Edinburgh 1809, i, 441, 489; Watts, From border to middle shire, 56–7. 39 This information had also reached Edinburgh and was relayed to the English ambassador to Scotland, Robert Bowes, who was in London, by his secretary, George Nicolson – a circuitous route, which indicated the wide interest it generated. See Calendar of the state papers relating to Scotland and Mary, queen of Scots, 1547–1603, ed. Joseph Bain and others, Edinburgh 1898–1969, xii, 30–3. 40 APC, 1597–1598, 45–6. 38

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explained by the fact that he had yet to find a suitable house, the fault for which was implicitly laid at Forster’s door. The commission to report on the middle march was headed by Sir William Bowes of Streatlam, who was, significantly, a trusted ally of Huntingdon. He was joined by Francis Slingsby, of Scriven in Yorkshire, Clement Colmore, the Durham justice of the peace who was rector of Gateshead, and Henry Anderson, the Newcastle hostman who had bought the estate of Haswell in county Durham, and was another of Huntingdon’s close allies. Thus, a commission which was required to gain an accurate impression of local conditions in the north and west of the diocese of Durham was composed of a group of gentlemen whose interests lay in its south and east. But, in making these appointments to the commission to report on the middle march, the government was demonstrating its growing exasperation with the Northumberland gentry who were signally failing to act against the ‘reiving clans’, either because they were implicated in, or tacitly sympathetic with, their raids on the lowlands. On 17 November the commission delivered fourteen points from Huntingdon to Forster, whose buoyant reply was masterly in its evasion and ingenuity.41 Either the responsibility was not his, he claimed, or else border administration was based on measures that were too easily exploited. The practice of exchanging bills of written accusations against named suspects in the opposite march was a case in point. According to Forster, by the tacit ‘agreement of the Princes’ and ‘consent of the Wardens’ the system had long been mutually manipulated to make sure the numbers of English and Scottish bills were roughly equal, thus cancelling out each other ‘to spare file’ and, thereby, effort. Once again, Forster was taking it upon himself to instruct those, less familiar than himself, about the operation of border administration and justice. Unfortunately for Forster, another set of questions, addressed by Huntingdon to a number of Northumberland gentlemen regarding the decay of the middle march, elicited a very different response from his glowing assessment.42 They reported on ‘the huge decays and losses sustained by the inhabitants of this Middle March, in these last two years, by Scotland’, and were able, in the space of an hour, to come up with 155 Englishmen murdered in defence of their goods since the tenth year of Elizabeth’s reign (1567–8, the year before the rising of the earls and a regularly used base-point). They concluded with a graphic account of the tortures inflicted by the Scots on English prisoners they had taken to ransom. There were a number of reasons for the Northumberland gentry producing a report to assist Huntingdon in his plan to replace a native Northumbrian with an unknown warden whose interests had hitherto been focused upon a quite different county. They may simply have been providing

41

HMC, Salisbury, v, 468–70. They included Cuthbert Collingwood, Robert Delaval, William Fenwick, Edward Gray and Henry Widdrington, together with his uncle, Robert, and his brother, Roger. HMC, Salisbury, v, 476–7. 42

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a traditional response to inquiries about their ‘countrye’, to preserve their fiscal privileges. They were also accustomed to highlight, or even exaggerate, border problems in order to try to squeeze funds from an over-stretched and parsimonious government.43 This was especially so by the mid-1590s, when four successive harvests failed between 1594 and 1597. The general economic distress in England impacted particularly severely upon northern uplanders, who were driven to raid the stores and stock of their more prosperous lowland neighbours. In 1595, after a second successive harvest failure, the Northumberland gentlemen were in a unique position to witness these privations. So that, far from feeling marginalised and resenting the challenge to their competence to manage their own county, the resident gentry may have felt some relief that they were excused from prosecuting their countrymen at this particular time. Also, Sir John Forster had come into conflict with many of the Northumberland gentry during his thirty-five-year career as warden,44 creating a general and widespread hostility against him in the county and beyond. At the same time as the Northumberland gentry submitted their account of the state of the middle march, the commissioners had been busy putting together the comprehensive report required of them. They consulted Huntingdon, who was, by then, in Newcastle ‘for the better establishing of the Lord Eure in his office’, and then the report was ready to be sent to Burghley.45 The picture they presented was wretched. Established religion was suffering for want of preachers, there being ‘scant three . . . to be found in the whole country’, so that the superior ‘number and diligence of the Semyn[aries] with more liberty resorting thither, being driven from oth[er] places of both the realmes’, were having little difficulty in finding willing converts to Roman Catholicism. Common law was undermined by the warden ‘using [another] coorse of Justice’ in his own best interests; while march justice was rendered ineffective by ‘the [unlawfull complots and combynacons of the] Englishe with the Scottes’. The Treaty of Berwick, concluded between Scotland and England in 1560, was perverted by the Scots with, what appeared to be, Forster’s compliance. By now, the total claimed to have been murdered since 1567–8 had risen to 200 and, of 2,000 furnished horsemen certified two years before, only 100 could be accounted for. Moreover, the difficulties were no longer confined to the area in the immediate vicinity of the borders, for the ‘contagion’ they found ‘hath towched and greatly impoverished the par[t of

43 The border shires’ exemption from subsidy C14–C15 and numerous petitions for relief show that borderers were well versed in talking up their poverty and defencelessness. I owe this point to private correspondence with Anthony Goodman. 44 See Meikle, ‘A godly rogue’, 145ff. 45 BL, MS Cotton Caligula D, ii, fos 230ff. The letter is part of a collection of William Bowes’s private papers, which were damaged by fire, and is supplemented, indicated here in square brackets, from a transcript in BL, MS Harleian 4648, fos 250ff.

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the] Bishopricke next adioning to Northumberland, along parte of the Rivers of tease, weare and darwent’. This conveyed a common experience shared by the borderers of Northumberland and the inhabitants of western Durham, which distress extended beyond the two north-eastern counties, south of the river Tees. For instance, in Richmondshire, two substantial houses were ‘assalted’ and ‘spoyled . . . 70 myles from the Borders’. John Ferne, newly appointed secretary to Huntingdon, whom he accompanied to Newcastle in November 1595, corroborated the commissioners’ portrayal of the situation in a series of observations he sent to Burghley about the middle march.46 Although his figures differed somewhat from those of the commission – he afforded the march four preachers and accounted 160 murders since 1567–8 – his conclusions, that the cause of the mischief lay with the degree of Anglo-Scottish ‘convenues and conferences’, were predictably similar to those of Bowes and the rest of the commission. For they had observed that the reason for the woeful state of affairs in the middle march was ‘th[at the wardens] and opposite officers, being ever chosen of borderers [bred and inhabiting] there, they doe contynewally cherishe their favourites [and strengthen] themselves by the worst disposed’. This was no novel comment on those local governors who had a material interest in the exercise of their public authority, but at the end of 1595 it was a very useful weapon with which to further the Elizabethan government’s centralising ambitions. What the gentlemen of Northumberland cannot have anticipated when they obliged Huntingdon with the necessary evidence to dismiss Forster was that, within a couple of months, most of them would be excluded from the Northumberland commission of the peace and replaced by gentlemen from Durham and Yorkshire. Accordingly, in January 1596, the Grays, Fenwicks, Middletons and Widdringtons were removed, leaving just four active Northumbrian justices of the peace.47 Later that year, a commission designed to handle border matters included not one Northumberland gentleman. Instead, it was composed of bishop Toby Matthew, Sir William Bowes, Francis Slingsby and Clement Colmore. The most recent border commission before that, in 1588, had consisted more conventionally of the wardens and their deputies: Sir John Forster, together with Sir Robert Carey, warden of the east march, with his deputy, Sir John Selby, and Humphrey Musgrave, deputy warden of the west march. The omission of wardens and deputy wardens in 1596 was because the setting up of the commission had been prompted by ‘complaint on either side both of the wardens and their deputies’.48 For, within a year, it was becoming clear that Eure was proving to be quite unequal to the task of governing the middle march and was attracting precisely the same criticisms as had Sir John Forster.

46 47 48

HMC, Salisbury, v, 493–4. For membership of the commission of the peace for January 1596, see SP 13/F/11. CBP, i, 306; Calendar of Scottish state papers, xii, 328; CBP, ii, 199. 77

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Not the least of Eure’s faults was his failure to cultivate appropriate allies amongst the Northumberland gentry, which left him rather more closely identified with Catholics than might be deemed suitable for an avowed champion of Protestantism and opponent of recusancy. Eure’s chief associates were Sir Ralph Gray of Chillingham, whose first wife was suspected of harbouring seminary priests,49 and his brother Sir Edward of Morpeth. By allying himself with long-time rivals of the Widdringtons, Eure incurred the enmity of that very powerful Northumberland family who provided the county with members of parliament and sheriffs. He stirred up further trouble for himself by appointing Yorkshiremen to key border offices, in particular Ralph Mansfield and Thomas Percy.50 By substituting Northumberland gentlemen with Yorkshiremen, Eure, no doubt, was hoping to check the interaction between the Scottish and English borderers which, it was felt, was prejudicial to the good government of the area. In 1593, Huntingdon had endeavoured to eradicate ‘sundrey unlawful customs’ such as Anglo-Scottish marriages, and Englishmen holding land in Scotland and ‘carryinge themselves as Scotts’, which jeopardised the peace and quiet of the borders.51 But after twenty years as lord president of the Council in the North he must have been increasingly aware that the chances of eradicating such practices were slim. Certainly, Sir John Carey was still complaining that ‘there is too greate intercourse and familiaritie betwene our Englishe and Scottishe borderes, which is to the overthrowe and utter Rewyne of this countrye’, in January 1603.52 Holding views such as those, it was scarcely surprising that he should be thrown into such a panic when rumours of the queen’s serious ill health seeped northwards in the following weeks. Within a year of his appointment, with the consensus grounded in opposition to Forster having collapsed, Eure found himself at loggerheads with a significant proportion of the Northumberland gentry. When he had to explain himself to the privy council he pleaded that it was the ‘roote insolence of those within my government, respecting more there severall lustes than the necessary service of their countrie which hath hindered me’, and he added a catalogue of his frustrated attempts to impose order.53 For instance, and revealing his failure to get to grips with the subtleties of his task, he complained that offenders in one march absconded into another, ‘as into a severed state’, since it was acknowledged that ‘the three severall marches are three severall kingdoms for government’. With the cooperation of the Northumberland gentry, fulfilling the duties of warden was daunting; without it, the task was almost impossible.

49

Watts, From border to middle shire, 79. Percy was later implicated in the gunpowder plot, making him dubious company for the anti-Catholic Eure. 51 See Meikle, A British frontier?, 252–77. 52 SP 59/32/191, SP 59/36/168, SP 59/9/93, SP 59/41/223. 53 SP 59/32/191, SP 59/32/193. 50

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Eure had managed to squander the fund of goodwill he had acquired upon assuming the role of warden, albeit by default, remarkably quickly. Matters were made worse when it was believed that Eure had entered into an ill-judged alliance with his opposite number on the Scottish middle march, Robert Ker (later laird of Cessford). For Ker was involved in long-running disputes with a number of Northumberland gentlemen, including Henry Widdrington and his brothers, who were holding James Young, one of Ker’s ‘boon companions’, prisoner at their castle at Swinburn. Affairs had come to a dramatic head in the summer of 1596. Apparently Eure and Ker had met secretly at Harbottle Castle, prior to their first day of truce, to be held a couple of days later. There, Eure had assured Ker that he would not protect the Widdringtons from him, if, or more likely when, he came to avenge himself upon them.54 This was a serious dereliction of duty by the English warden, who was responsible for the security of those who lived under his jurisdiction. Ker duly assaulted Swinburn, rescued Young and forced Roger Widdrington to promise that he would surrender himself to Ker at his convenience. Yet when Roger Widdrington felt himself bound to honour his promise, Eure promptly indicted him in his warden’s court for breaching march law. This was despite the fact that Roger Widdrington had, quite properly, obtained a licence to enter Scotland ‘as lawfully as he might by the border custome’ from the acting warden of the east march, Sir Robert Carey, which Eure had concealed.55 The entire episode was evidence of Eure’s inability to grasp the intricacies and complexities of border government. Henry Widdrington and other Northumberland gentlemen, meanwhile, withdrew themselves from the middle march, declaring themselves unable to live under the warden’s rule. Their departure was to have serious repercussions regarding the government of the borders, which was appreciated by the queen and Sir Robert Cecil, if not by Eure, who regarded their behaviour as a personal affront to himself. ‘Thus ame I crossed,’ he protested, ‘and my government disliked.’56 When the Widdringtons, the Selbys and other Northumberland gentlemen joined the earl of Essex on his voyage to the Azores, in July 1597, it was time for central government to take a hand. With the queen receiving ‘howerly complaint of the Borders devastation’, Cecil relayed her insistence that they return ‘for she in no sort likes that they should leave the frontiers soe weakened’.57 This was a clear recognition that policing the international frontier with Scotland was the business of the local gentry with their particular understanding of conditions obtaining there. There was another ingredient in the complicated situation in the northeastern part of the kingdom. Over and above Tudor ambitions of state formation and the critical economic distress was the growing threat of war with

54 55 56 57

SP 59/36/174. BL, MS Cotton, Caligula, D, ii, fo. 271; SP 59/36/174. SP 59/33/48. SP 12/264/61. 79

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Ireland, in late 1594, and the possibility that the king of Scotland might ally himself with the Irish rebels, making the borders the front line against an enemy state.58 Such an alliance had long concerned the government. In April 1581, Walsingham had expressed his dismay that the queen meant to disband all but 500 men in the northern companies, remarking to Huntingdon, ‘by which account I see that Scotland is clean lost, and a gate opened thereby for the loss of Ireland’.59 The precarious situation, in 1596, precipitated another bill ‘to strengthen the borders towards Scotland’. Drafted and then corrected by Burghley, it indicated his changed perception of the resident gentry, especially as regarded their loyalty.60 Amongst his alterations, Burghley had crossed out ‘strangers’, which implied a shared outlook, albeit with slight idiosyncrasies, and substituted the more divisive ‘forraigners’. He was making very plain the distinction between the Scottish and the English, and, by extension, ensuring that their propensity to consort with each other socially did not develop into the kind of collusion that marked the cross-border rieving society. He sought to guarantee the integrity of a proposed commission to inquire into the readiness of the inhabitants to defend the borders, by inserting a proviso that the chancellor of England or the assize judges must swear its members. Thereby, he ensured a legally binding loyalty from the commissioners, and, at the same time, unequivocally identified them with more centralised structures of government. The security of the realm in this sensitive part of the kingdom could not be left solely to the gentlemen of Northumberland with their distinctive, yet impenetrable, modes of government. They had to be directed and monitored by representatives of central government with the crown’s interests at heart. It was unfortunate that Eure proved to be such a disaster in his allotted role. Paradoxically, the deplorable situation that had developed in the middle march in the 1590s proved that alienating the local political community and excluding the resident gentry from local government, and relying, instead, on outsiders or absentees, was undermining the Tudors’ centralising policies, which were as far from successful fruition at the end of their period as at the beginning. When Widdrington and Browne had made lengthy statements

58 Although that did not happen, Scots, especially from the western highlands, were worryingly inclined to help the Irish rebels. And as late as 1602, when the king of Scotland sent reinforcements to Ireland, there was some confusion among the Irish about the side on which they were coming to fight, adding to the sense of unease. Calendar of state papers relating to Ireland in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, ed. Hans Claude Hamilton and others, London 1860–1912, x, 122–3. And see Diana Newton, The making of the Jacobean regime: James VI and I and the government of England, 1603–1605, Royal Historical Society, Woodbridge 2005, 145. 59 HMC, Hastings, ii, 30. 60 SP 59/32/309. Shortly before, a document headed ‘A diversity of the faults enquirable on the frontiers’ further demonstrated the government’s understanding of the borders (my italics), SP 15/33/1.

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explaining why they could no longer live under Eure’s authority, they cited his failure to provide justice or protection. But it was his collusion with Ker, ‘that border bloud sucker and State Enemie’ with whom he ‘held a strange & unaccustomed kinde of triste’ at Harbottle Castle where they made secret agreements regarding forthcoming days of truce that were ‘contrarie to all lawe and indyfferencie & border custome’, that was the greatest affront. According to Widdrington, it was his failure to ‘intertaine Amytie’ with Ker that incurred Eure’s malice thereafter.61 Yet Widdrington’s antipathy towards Ker was not a matter of Anglo-Scottish hostility or reluctance to contravene border laws and customs, for there was a long tradition of cross-border relations, both official and unofficial, of which he was a part.62 It was entirely personal – which Eure either could not, or would not, recognise. A very long account ‘concerninge the abused government and afflicted estate of Northumberland’, produced in 1597, was every bit as incriminating as those reports that had contributed to the overthrow of Forster.63 Amongst the many complaints about Eure was his diverting horses and expenses intended for the defence of the borders to Yorkshire, a charge that could not have been levelled against the Northumbrian Forster. Thus were highlighted the problems arising from Eure’s apparent identification with Yorkshire, rather than Northumberland or the diocese of Durham. His position clearly was untenable, and, early the following year, he resigned.64 He was replaced by Sir Robert Carey. Although Carey did not enjoy long ancestral links with the north-eastern parts of the realm as had Eure, he had spent much of his boyhood in Berwick, when his father, Lord Hunsdon, was warden of the east march. Temperamentally he was very different from Eure, not least in that he was eminently suited to border life, with which he was already experienced. He greeted his preferment to deputy warden of the west march under his brother-in-law, Lord Scrope, in 1593, after an unproductive time spent at court, with relish. ‘I took myself to the country,’ he wrote in his memoirs, ‘where I lived with great comfort: for we had a stirring world, and few days passed over my head but I was on horseback, either to prevent mischief, or to take malefactors.’65 On

61

SP 59/36/168 and 174. In particular, Eure protected Thomas Errington from prosecution for murdering one of Widdrington’s men. However, in January 1602 Errington was presented for murdering one Cuthbert Hunter. NRO (Morpeth), QS1, fo. 26r. 62 See Meikle, A British frontier?, ch. 8. 63 SP 59/36/223. From internal evidence the author was a native gentleman from Northumberland. 64 He severed his connections with the North altogether when he sold the manor of Ingleby to Sir David Foulis in 1608, following his appointment as lord president of the council of Wales in 1607, and he died in Ludlow in 1617. See Victoria history: North Riding, ii, 245; Complete peerage, v, 182. Foulis was a loyal and trusted servant of King James, who sent him to confer with his new English privy council in March 1603, until he arrived in London himself. Bodl. Lib., MS Ashmole, no. 1729, fo. 25. 65 The memoirs of Robert Carey, ed. F.H. Mares, Oxford 1972, 22–3. 81

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the death of his father, in July 1596, he was appointed acting warden of the east march. From there he was able to observe Eure’s mismanagement of the middle march, where ‘every year grew worse and worse, that none flourished but malefactors’, chiefly as a result of Eure misplacing his trust and his inability to cultivate suitable allies among the Northumberland gentry.66 Carey, on the other hand, closely identified himself with the area, especially after he married Elizabeth Trevannion, widow of Sir Henry Widdrington, uncle to Henry and Roger Widdrington, in 1593. He made plain this affiliation when he was pleading with Burghley for the authority and resources to deal with Ker or else to be replaced in his office, because he ‘desire[d] not to lyve where myself shalbe disgraced and my country undone’ if he were unable to execute his office properly.67 Thus, he linked his own fortunes with those of his adopted country, while his attitude towards the area was quite different from that of Eure, who referred to the Northumberland gentry and their country. Carey reiterated his identification with the North when he recounted how, after another stint at court, ‘new occasion was offered me to continue a northern man still’,68 as warden of the middle march, early in 1598. However, he informed Burghley that ‘the government of the Middle March is too hard a task for me, and I know the state of it so well’. The fact that he also reported that he ‘was a stranger to the country, and had a small acquaintance in it’,69 demonstrated how far he appreciated the importance of personal relationships, as well as familiarity with the territory, to fulfilling his duties. In the event, he was able to draw upon the services of his step-nephew, Henry Widdrington, and Widdrington’s ally, William Fenwick, as his deputies and as keepers of the troublesome uplands of Redesdale and Tynedale respectively. The fact that he never encountered the level of opposition that his predecessors had may well be attributed to the way in which he integrated himself into Northumberland and identified himself so closely with the North, and especially its northeastern parts. He remained in office for five years, until the accession of James VI and I and his resolution to dissolve the borders rendered the wardenries redundant.

Governing the middle shires The new king of England made his first formal statement about the union of England and Scotland, and the place of the borders in his plans, in a proclamation issued from Greenwich on 19 May 1603.70 This proclamation,

66 67 68 69 70

Mares, Carey’s memoirs, 46. SP 59/32/110. My italics. Mares, Carey’s memoirs, 44. SP 59/37/17; Mares, Carey’s memoirs, 46. John Strype, Annals of the Reformation and establishment of religion, Oxford 1824, iv, 378–9; 82

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‘for the Uniting of England and Scotland’, determined that, ‘the said happy union should be perfected’ and ‘all preterite discontentmens abolished’. He announced that the borders ‘shall be no more the extremities, but the middle’, and, rather optimistically, predicted that ‘the Inhabitants thereof [would be] reduced to perfect obedience’. He also insisted that English and Scots should regard themselves as one people – unus grex – but he never really explained how this was to be achieved.71 In the same way, despite repeated claims by James’s historians, he never really tackled the question of the future of march law. According to Watts, and reiterated by Galloway, James abolished march law and discontinued the office of lords warden by proclamation from Newcastle on 13 April. They cite a letter from the king to messengers, sheriffs and others. However, the calendared entry to which they refer announces that a proclamation is to be made, against all rebels and their wives and ‘bairns’; it does not mention either march law or wardens. The document itself is a ‘copie of the king’s proclamation’ and was more concerned with labouring his title to the English throne, before going on to charge by open proclamation that all rebels are to be ‘persewit and punished with fyre and sword accordinglie’.72 This reflected the new king’s current concerns. For he was not sure that his accession would go unchallenged; while the so-called ‘busy week’, when some of the inhabitants of the west march disingenuously claimed that all laws were in abeyance until the new king was crowned, was an early, and uncomfortable, challenge to his authority.73 The Newcastle proclamation said nothing about march laws or the wardens. Technically, march laws continued in force until they were formally abolished by act of parliament in 1607,74 while, in practice, they slipped into oblivion. In any case, it has been argued that, while ‘[i]n theory, these statutes established a strict Iron Curtain between Carlisle and Berwick, [t]he reality was very different.’75 After all, for much of the time, long before 1603, the borders were more apparent than real and only recognised by the native borderers when it suited them. In one very important respect, the accession of King James impacted positively on the resident gentry of Northumberland, as responsibility for the

A bibliography of royal proclamations of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns, 1485–1714, 1485–1714, ed. Robert Steele, Oxford 1910, i, 108; Larkin and Hughes, Stuart proclamations, i, 18–20. 71 The political works of James I (reprinted from the edition of 1616), ed. Charles Howard McIlwain, New York 1965, 292; Jenny Wormald, ‘James VI, James I and the identity of Britain’, in Morrill and Bradshaw, The British problem. 72 Watts, From border to middle shire, 134; Bruce Galloway, The union of England and Scotland, 1603–1608, Edinburgh 1986, 16; HMC 12th report, appendix 7, MSS of Le Fleming of Rydal Hall, 12; Cumbria Record Office (Kendal), WD/Ry/HMC no. 70. 73 It was perhaps significant that King James made his entry into England through the east march. 74 4 Jac. I, c.1. 75 Galloway, Union, 65. 83

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government of the borders was gradually restored to them. Evidence of the new king’s approach to governing the borders had come in July 1587 when his Scottish parliament had passed an extremely long and comprehensive ‘act anent the borders and highlands’, which collated previous ordinances to impose ‘good rule’ on the borders.76 The crucial point was that local lairds, who were deemed accountable for their kinship and adherents, were to enforce it. In marked contrast to the English side of the borders, border nobles and lairds were responsible for the Scottish wardenry and judiciary, while the rollcall of the General Bands, appointed to enforce order in the borders, remained much the same in 1587 and 1602. James was to transfer this reliance on local officers to England. As the first step, George Clifford, earl of Cumberland, was appointed to wield overall authority as lord lieutenant of the three border counties of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland. This was an early example of how the whole of the North was henceforth to be regarded as a coherent administrative entity by the central authorities. With the removal of the political border, the artificially contrived marches would become similarly redundant. Thereby, the North, and the north-eastern parts, were subject to a quite fundamental political and administrative realignment in the immediate aftermath of King James’s accession. Even so, the 45-year-old earl’s family interests lay in the North West and he had spent much of his career leading a number of successful expeditions to the West Indies, which might not appear to have equipped him to undertake the government of the northernmost parts of England, especially the north-eastern counties. However, he had sponsored a sea-voyage to Brazil, led by Robert Widdrington, which gave him an entrée into north-eastern society and led to his choosing Robert’s brother, the recently knighted Sir Henry Widdrington, for his deputy in Northumberland. In October 1603, Charles Hales, a member of the Council of the North, wrote from Carlisle to Sir Robert Cecil, enthusiastically praising the earl of Cumberland, and reporting that ‘for 4 or 5 months past there hath been an extraordinary peace in the country’.77 Cumberland himself notified the privy council that ‘in the time of greate stir on the West Borders Northumberland rested quiet’. And, apart from a flurry of presentments for petty thefts, made to the Northumberland quarter sessions in the last week of March 1603, this supports the assumption that the north-eastern parts were less turbulent than their north-western counterparts at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries.78 But, most significantly, the commission of the

76

The Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, ed. C. Innes and T. Thomson, London 1814, iii, 461–7. 77 HMC, Salisbury, v, 258–9. 78 SP 14/5/131; NRO (Morpeth), QS1. And see above, Chapter 3, for the way in which the rieving clans were less of a problem on the north-eastern borders, even before the accession of King James. 84

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peace issued in 1604 was composed of many resident Northumberland gentry (also newly knighted), while the border commission, instated the following year, was instructed to remove all obstacles that might prevent them from assuming full control of the county.79 It is difficult to draw firm conclusions about conditions on the borders and the performance of the newly installed personnel, because much of the central archive for the early years of King James’s reign was destroyed in a fire at Whitehall in 1617. However, the Vetera indictamenta records that, not only did quarter sessions continue to meet regularly from 1604 onwards, but also coroners’ inquests were held throughout the county.80 At the same time, very detailed instructions were sent to Northumberland, entitled ‘Orders to be kept and observed in the countie court of Northumberland’.81 They covered seventeen points and were endorsed by the sheriff, Sir Ralph Delaval, who was responsible for disseminating them. Very soon, however, the relatively rosy and harmonious picture of conditions in the north-eastern corner of the kingdom began to fragment. Cumberland found that, because the justices of the peace (sitting as grand jurors) were reluctant to convict offenders at the general gaol delivery, held in Newcastle Castle in August 1604, the assize judges had ‘thought it fitt to take them all bound to answere the matter in the Starr Chamber’. Cumberland had observed that, as before, ‘the most part of the country, yea, even the better sorte, standes affected, by one meane or other to favour theeves’. An anonymous exposé of border government concluded that ‘the lieutenant or his deputie maie doe his Maty & the countrie farr better service, in manie cases, then it can be possible the Justices of peace shoulde doe’ because they dare not ‘doe Justice of theis Tribes of Theeves’ for fear of reprisals.82 The account went on to remark that the lamentable conditions on the borders after the union of the crowns were because, ‘nowe Border lawes being taken away, all the evill disposed persons on all the Borders As well Englishe as Skottish maie meete together, lawfullie to sett their purposes’. The king’s optimistic predictions for the ‘middle shires’ were encountering the realities on the ground, where conditions were being further complicated by the outcome of union. The gentlemen of Northumberland’s ‘articles . . . shewing the cause of our present miserie and weake estate’, sent to the privy council in 1604, complained about ‘the dayly and continuall theft, wherewith we are nightly opprest contrary to all expectation, beinge nowe greater, then hath bene dyvers yeares heretofore’, and catalogued their difficulties in countering the upsurge in lawlessness.83 However, as they concluded by claiming this made it impossible for them to contribute to the privy seal loan issued in July, their motives for

79 80 81 82 83

CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 3–4; BL, MS Add. 38139. NRO (Morpeth), QS1. NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/7/6. SP 14/5/131, SP 14/5/43. SP 14/9A/230. My italics. 85

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writing conformed to their habitual plea for special financial treatment on account of the peculiarly difficult conditions in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. A series of commissions of oyer and terminer were the basis of Cumberland’s authority in the short term; but, on his own admission, he was not experienced in ‘matter of justice’.84 Sooner or later the confusion surrounding the government of the borders, or ‘middle shires’, needed to be tackled. In the new king’s eyes, this formed part of the union of England and Scotland, a project that could not be embarked upon soon enough. Yet his first English parliament had been sitting for almost a month before the matter was addressed. And, when it was, the level of participation by the members of parliament for Northumberland, Sir Henry Widdrington and Sir Ralph Gray, was curiously unimpressive. Only Widdrington was on the hundred-strong group of Commons initially appointed to confer with the Lords, and he was not on the smaller reporting committee.85 Both members were on the committee for the good of both the realms, selected in May 1604, to treat of the union, together with Henry Chapman, merchant and member of parliament for Newcastle, and seven members of the Council of the North.86 But, as this committee was composed of around a hundred members, their presence was more a matter of convention than conviction. Neither Widdrington nor Gray were on the select committee chosen to consult on the future of the so-called ‘hostile laws’, which were a heterogeneous group of laws, passed at different times for a variety of purposes, intended to define relations between England and Scotland; nor were they on any of the committees selected to discuss trade, customs and imposts. They did not participate in any of the subsequent debates, either.87 This was despite the fact that they represented an area where the results of those deliberations arguably would have the greatest impact. The Northumberland members’ lack of interest was surprising to contemporary commentators as well. When the anonymous author of the so-called ‘Paper Booke’, an exposition on the 1606 session of parliament, came to the subject of the borders, he stated that, of this I will not venture to say anything being so farre remote from them, But refer it to those that live there and best knowe the use of them. They seeme to 84

HMC, Salisbury, xv, 260. CJ, i, 171–3. 86 CJ, i, 212–13; BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fos 22v–23r. It would seem that Widdrington was an unfamiliar figure at Westminster, for he was first recorded as Middrington, before being corrected. 87 BL, MS Add. 26635, fos 3ff.; Galloway, Union, 65; BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fos 17ff.; CJ, i, 176–202. Although Widdrington did sit on a couple of other committees Gray appears to have been entirely silent. For notes on these debates see Sir Edward Montagu’s journal in Northamptonshire record office, MS Montagu, 29, and printed in Simon Healy, ‘Debates in the House of Commons, 1604–1607’, in Chris R. Kyle (ed.), Parliament, politics and elections, 1604–1648, Cambridge 2001. 85

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take no great comfort or apprehend any great good by abolishing those border Lawes and treaties, especially in the case of filed Bills &c And therefore this is very warily to be handled and those of most experience in those parts to be heard pro et cont . . .88

Yet the evidence appears to show that those with the most interest in those matters declined to engage in the parliamentary process, one way or the other. Quite how the north-eastern members felt about the union, and its impact on the borders, is almost impossible to establish, for the surviving parliamentary diaries from James’s first English parliament all belong to members representing constituencies in the Midlands and the South, 89 whilst none of the abundant tracts and treatises on the subject, whose authors are known, were written by north-easterners.90 The members of parliament representing the boroughs of Newcastle, Morpeth and Berwick seemed similarly disinclined to participate in parliamentary affairs, except when matters that directly affected them were under discussion. The rather anonymously denoted ‘burgesses of Newcastle’ (George Selby and Henry Chapman) were appointed to the inaugural committee to meet the House of Lords, in April 1604, and again in November 1606, and Chapman was also one of four merchants named on the commission for union, issued in May 1604, the other three being from London, York and Bristol. With trade and customs occupying a fair proportion of parliamentary time, their presence was no doubt considered requisite. But neither of them contributed to the union debates in this or any other respect. Nor were they on the committee or the subcommittee convened to discuss commerce with the Scots.91 As founding members of the recently incorporated Newcastle hostmen’s company, Selby and Chapman might have been expected to engage in a matter that seemed of direct relevance to them. On the other hand, their lack of interest could have reflected their confidence in their unassailable position in the town and beyond, and their unshakeable sense of superiority, which were beyond challenge on account of the exceptional basis of their position and wealth. Moreover, their concerns were quite different from those of members of parliament representing the county of Northumberland, thereby defining another sub-region in the north-eastern parts.

88

BL, MS Harleian, 1314. These are the diaries of Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Edward Montagu, Sir George Manners and Robert Bowyer. The first three are in BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, Northamptonshire record office, MS Montagu and Belvoir Castle, MS Rutland, respectively, and the fourth is printed in David Harris Wilson (ed.), The parliamentary diary of Robert Bowyer 1606–1607, Minneapolis 1931. 90 These are dealt with in Galloway, Union, ch. 3, with, appended, a catalogue of tracts on the union. 91 BL, MS Add. 26635, fo. 6v, fo. 12v. 89

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The apparent silence of the shire members and their inactivity on the committee for the good of both the realms is rather more complex than either apathy or inexplicable perversity. For Widdrington had been discouraged from attending meetings of the committee by the earl of Cumberland who had procured a dispensation for his absence from parliament. Ostensibly this was to assist his fellow gentlemen in the government of their county, which they had recently reported to the privy council as being exceptionally unruly. But, if the anonymous author of the ‘Paper Booke’ was indeed reflecting the opinion of the northern members who did not wish to see the hostile laws abolished, then Cumberland had good reason to prevent their attendance at important meetings about the matter. For Cumberland was a privy councillor and likely to be in tune with the king and his aspirations regarding the union, especially the eradication of the borders, together with their peculiar border laws. The gentlemen of Northumberland, however, were equally determined that their point of view should be represented at the meetings of the parliamentary committee. A number of them, including those most active on the magisterial bench, who no doubt formulated joint action at their quarter sessions meetings, resolved to concert their efforts. In a letter to Cumberland they maintained that they would rather weather the consequences of Widdrington’s absence from the county than ‘hazard the hinderaunce and utter undoeing of us and our posterytye forever’, which might befall if he were not at the deliberations to further their interests at Westminster.92 They further justified his going to the capital, in spite of Cumberland’s dispensation, by pointing out that Widdrington could also ‘be ane honourable favourer and furtherauncer’ of the articles they had recently sent to the privy council. This not only showed how they appreciated the value of a representative at court, but it also demonstrated a much keener interest in the course of certain aspects of the union debates than is revealed in the parliamentary record. Cumberland’s attempts to prevent Widdrington participating in the debates about the union and the borders proved to be unnecessary in 1604. He did contribute to discussions about particular questions in subsequent sessions, however. These concerned escuage and remanding. Escuage was a privileged form of land tenure – usually between a manorial lord and his tenants – which was peculiar to the northern counties. In many ways it was similar to medieval scutage, which form of feudal land-holding had survived on the borders because of the concomitant obligation of those tenants who enjoyed the benefits of escuage to undertake military service on the Anglo-Scottish frontier.93 However, the peace that had existed between England and Scotland since the middle of the previous century meant that northern tenants continued to

92 SP 14/9A/228. Amongst the signatories were Edward Talbot, the hard-working custos rotulorum, Fenwicks and Delavals. 93 For an analysis of tenant-right and its variations see S.J. Watts, ‘Tenant-right in early seventeenth century Northumberland’, NH, vi (1971), 64–87.

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enjoy their preferential rights without being obliged to provide very much in return. Accordingly their landlords were anxious to eliminate these advantageous terms for their tenants, and efforts were being made to circumvent them even before 1603.94 Although it is not clear, it seems that Widdrington and Gray may have supported Sir Nicholas Fuller in his efforts to abolish escuage at the end of November 1607. But, while the members for Northumberland would be expected to engage in a debate that so nearly concerned their interests, the chief protagonist, Fuller, represented a constituency in the South, making his interest in a business that appeared to be entirely applicable to the North something of a puzzle. He was closely concerned with the vexed business of reforming crown finance, however, and his motives for becoming involved in the matter of escuage eventually were revealed when he ‘pulled off his maske and said plainly that it tended to taking away of wards’.95 The crown had a substantial interest in escuage because it involved feudal dues, such as marriage, relief and wardship, which benefits the crown – and Sir Robert Cecil, as Master of the Wards – was reluctant to forgo. What appeared to be a purely northern matter, therefore, had ramifications that concerned the king of England and his principal minister. In the prolific discourse about the union of the kingdoms, it had been observed, in May 1604, that the ‘borders and marches of kingdoms ar most subiect to incursions, spoyle, rapines, & other detestable outrages, the offenders flying from one into the other, upon the hope they have to eshew the punishment’.96 It was hoped that the union of the crowns would remedy this, by including a clause in the proposed act to abolish hostile laws in 1607. This was to provide for the extradition of fugitive offenders from their native country, to stand trial in the place where the offence had been committed: in other words, remanding. Widdrington was deeply opposed to it and did not hesitate to voice his disquiet when it was debated in the summer of 1607. The speaker, Sir Edward Phellips, reported that ‘Sir Henry Witherington much labours the passage of the bill’, together with the anti-remanding clause, ‘affirming that if the bill should be overthrown, himself and others were in danger of undoing thereby.’97 Not least of his concerns was that defendants would not have access to either council or witnesses. On 28 May, Sir Francis Bacon had optimistically announced to the Commons that the bill for the abolition of hostile laws was ‘near finished; – in sight of Land; – even now anchored’, except for the question: ‘If an Englishman offending in Scotland, return here and be apprehended here, whether to be remanded.’ 98 But the 94 See Watts, ‘Tenant-right’, 71–2; R.W. Hoyle, ‘Lords, tenants, and tenant right in the sixteenth century: four studies’, NH, xx (1984), 38–63; Hoyle, ‘An ancient and laudable custom . . .’, P&P, cxvi (1987), 22–55. 95 SP 14/24/13. And see Cramsie, Kingship and crown finance, 102, 112, 181. 96 BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fo. 35. 97 HMC, Salisbury, xix, 154–5. 98 CJ, i, 376.

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subject also attracted the attention of others who were engaged in governing the borders, who took an alternative view. The following day, a petition from the earl of Cumberland, the bishop of Durham, Sir William Selby (the member of parliament for Berwick), and a number of others was read out to the Commons. They claimed that the ‘present Form of Proceedings, whereof so great Good hath ensued’, relied upon ‘justicing Offenders in the Country where the offence is committed’ and they begged the Commons not to jeopardise it by including an anti-remanding clause in the bill for the abolition of the hostile laws.99 These contrasting opinions about the efficacy of retaining remanding highlighted the differences between the subregions within early modern Northumberland. On the one hand was Selby, the strict disciplinarian, who represented Berwick and lived in the lowland east march. He was aligned with the newly installed bishop William James, and the new earl of Cumberland, Francis Clifford, who was principally concerned with salvaging his Cumberland estates. On the other was the arguably more pragmatic Widdrington, whose views were formed in relation to his experience as a resident of North Tynedale’s lower reaches, as one-time deputy warden of the troubled middle march, and as deputy lieutenant of Northumberland. He prevailed, because when the act for the utter abolition of all memory of hostility was passed, there was no mention of remanding.100 When the member of parliament for Northumberland involved himself in the union debates he demonstrated that he could contribute very effectively indeed. While, paradoxically, Englishmen on the borders were afforded greater protection at law than enjoyed by those living south of the Tyne. The clearest indication of the transformed perception of the borders, and the north-eastern elites’ place in them, had come in February 1605, when a border commission was appointed comprising five English and five Scottish members, all of whom, significantly, were resident in the border counties.101 This reconstituted a ‘commission for matters of the borders’ composed of five bishops and twelve members of the privy council, which had been set up in January 1604, presumably to address the area as and when was necessary.102 The new commission was precipitated by events beyond the northern border zone. On 9 February the king had received a petition which informed him that his apparent leniency towards the Catholics was being misconstrued by his more zealous Protestant subjects as an overture to a complete toleration of the Catholics. Amongst the petitioners was the younger brother of the late earl of Huntingdon, the rabidly Puritan Sir Francis Hastings. It provoked

99

CJ, i, 377. BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fo. 105r; James I, c.1. Statutes of the realm, iv, part ii, 1134–7. 101 CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fo. 1. 102 SP 14/5/47. The bishops were of York [sic], Durham, Chester, Carlisle and Peterborough, and the privy councillors included the earls of Cumberland and Northumberland, as well as the three Scottish members. See also HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 13. 100

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immediate and sweeping action. The next day, James spent eight hours with his privy council, when he asserted that he would not countenance (Protestant) ‘schismatics’, nor would he tolerate Catholicism, and action was to continue against both. The outcome of the meeting was given expression by the lord keeper, Thomas Egerton, in his pre-circuit speech to the assize judges, in Star Chamber on 13 February, for translation to justices of the peace in the localities. The king also wrote to his council in Scotland, urging them to ensure that justice was properly administered.103 As part of this activity, the English council sent further instructions to the recently appointed commissioners to govern the borders, and the king wrote to Matthew Hutton, archbishop of York, and Lord Sheffield, lord president of the Council in the North, assuring them that he meant to maintain the church as he found it, despite the hopes of the Catholics. On the one hand, attention to the borders was just a part of a stringent tightening up of local government, which impacted on every corner of England, Scotland and Wales. On the other, it was an example of the king’s ability to exploit one situation to tackle another: in this instance, to appoint an Anglo-Scottish commission to break the ‘reiving clans’ and consequently to pacify the border. The border commissioners endeavoured to execute their charge diligently, not least by holding regular gaol deliveries. According to a volume of letters and other documents relating to the commission’s activities from 1605 to 1607, and confirmed in the Vetera Indictamenta, they held two gaol deliveries in 1605 and another two in 1606, at both Carlisle and Newcastle, in addition to those held annually by the assize judges. But, notwithstanding William Selby and Wilfred Lawson’s enthusing to Robert Cecil (now earl of Salisbury) that ‘wee fynde by experience that often holding gaol deliveries doth much advance the service’, and optimistically predicting that ‘we hope these partes will very shortly be indifferent cleare from theft and murder’, the commission was wound up soon after.104 A rather confused, incomplete and inaccurate record of a gaol delivery, in April 1607, was followed by a series of annual deliveries held by the resident gentry, no longer in thrall to the ‘reiving clans’. Occasionally, the earl of Cumberland, together with the Scottish earl of Dunbar, who had been specially appointed by the king in an advisory capacity, joined them.105 When the privy council ordered Cumberland and Lord Walden

103 The registrum vagum of Anthony Harrison, ed. T.F. Barton, Norfolk Record Society xxii, 1963, i, 155–6; HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 52; SP 14/12/74; Baildon, Cases in Camera Stellata, 186–92; Register of the privy council of Scotland, vii, 465–6. For the course of this, see Diana Newton, ‘Sir Francis Hastings and the religious education of James VI and I’, HJ, xli (1998), 917–34. 104 CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 11, 45, 70, 107–8; NRO (Morpeth), QS1, fos 40, 50, 54, 58; SP14/18/52. 105 NRO (Morpeth), QS1, fos 68, 75, 83, 91, 117, 128, 156; CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 162, 163. The king made it plain to Dunbar that he did not have the authority to proceed as a judge or commissioner, but was to assist with advice.

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that ‘gaole deliveries be more frequent, and that the prisoners in gaole at every Quarter Sessions may be tried, as it is usuall to be done at the Assizes’, in February 1616, they were merely recommending what had long been the practice in Northumberland.106 This was just one example of the government’s unfamiliarity with the counties of the North East compromising their ability to exercise effective control over them. In November 1605, Sir Wilfred Lawson, one of the border commissioners, had to explain to the earl of Salisbury that it was unfeasible for Sir Henry Widdrington to take charge of the castles at Alnwick, Tynemouth and Cockermouth, because Cockermouth was nearly forty miles from any part of Northumberland. Soon after, Sir William Selby complained that the earl of Salisbury did not seem to understand how far the Northumberland commissioners were from the west march.107 However, given that these distances were not insuperable, it may also have reflected tensions between the west and the middle and east marches, thereby demonstrating how eradicating centuries-old alignments was not quite as simple as the government had envisaged. Meanwhile, the hostile rhetoric used to describe the outlaws on the borders endured. For example, the king ordered that the armour ‘which hath served the broken people within those bonds in their lewd actions’ be taken from them, and further orders were issued regarding ‘the broken people of either countrie’. Most vociferous of all was Henry Sanderson, together with certain ministers of the church. Their tirades against the Catholics of Hexham and Bywell, which coincided with the general alarms throughout the kingdom early in 1605, referred to ‘this barbarous and irreligious contry’, and ‘the malicious practices and mortal hatred of bloody papists’.108 But the officers charged with governing the borders were similarly inclined to maintain an image of the area’s wayward character. This was partly to convince the government of the scale of their task and, by extension, their adroit and conscientious discharge of their obligations; but also, not to compromise their exemption from the financial burdens borne by the southern counties.109 So that, when the border commissioner, William Selby, pronounced that ‘the middle shires on the English side are well delivered from theft and murder’, in March 1606, he was careful to add that ‘Northumberland is at this day well nigh as peacable as any other northern shire’.110 Ten years later, the earl of Cumberland and Lord Walden, lords lieutenant of the ‘middle shires’, pleaded that their border obligations justified their exemption from the recent orders for a muster of all the counties.

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APC, 1615–1616, 404–7. CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 47, 78. 108 CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 3, 6; HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 112, 192–4. And see Anthony Goodman, ‘Religion and warfare in the Anglo-Scottish marches’, in Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (eds), Medieval frontier societies, Oxford 1989, especially 262–6. 109 For example, SP14/16/139, SP 14/16/191, SP14/18/52, SP 14/20/106, SP 14/21/14; HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 132, 191, 201, 382, 427–8; xviii, 44. 110 SP14/19/15 (my italics). 107

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The council made it plain that their claim was invalid because, ‘now, by his Majesties happie uniting both kingdoms, they are become the middle partes thereof, and thereby fitt to receive any direccions of order and government, as shalbe thought meete to be given to any other partes’.111 To restore the area’s singular disposition, and its particular demands, very soon afterwards Cumberland and Walden reported that theft and stealing had reached such a height in Northumberland ‘that it cannot be suppressed with ordinary course of proceedings’.112 They advised that ‘it is very expedient that some order be taken for the chastisement of soe notorious malefactors and cleeringe the country of soe greate an inconvenience’. But by then they were dealing with a very different regime. Lord Burghley ultimately had concluded that the resident Northumberland gentry could not be entrusted with the government of the sensitively placed borders, on account of their seeming inability to check the riding clans. From the beginning of his rule in England, James exploited them, however, with their particular understanding of the area and its mores. In August 1604 a commission was appointed to produce ‘A Book of the Survey of Certaine Border Lands belonging to the Crowne of England Lying betwixt the East and West seas and Bounding upon the Realm of Scotland’. 113 The book also contained a very detailed description of the area, together with the names of all its landlords in the margin. Although the survey was, no doubt, produced in order for the new king to assess his revenues, it is significant that the commissioners were all gentlemen from Cumberland and Northumberland. In April 1606, James concluded some extremely lengthy instructions to ‘the commissioners of the Middleshires’ by saying that, ‘wee remitt it to your consideration, and desire to be advised of your opinions’. It was an approach that lasted until the very last days of his life. When his privy council wrote to the assize judges in Northumberland concerning a case between Thomas Ogle and Roger Widdrington, on 25 March 1625, they counselled that, ‘because the business cannot receive a cleere satisfaccion in this place (the testimonies being so farr remote as the county of Northumberland)’, they and the principal justices of the peace were to make a summary examination.114 For the northeastern elites, the most significant consequence of the change of dynasty, and union of the crowns, was their reinstatement as local governors.

111

APC, 1613–1614, 595. APC, 1615–1616, 235–6. 113 SP14/9A/267. 114 SP 14/20/108; APC, 1623–1625, 509. 112

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5

Civil society in north-eastern England The Tudors had endeavoured to achieve state formation through the imposition of a general ‘English civility’ upon the whole kingdom. Yet Steve Ellis has argued that their ambitions ultimately were doomed to failure in the marcher societies of the borderlands, especially in Northumberland: a failure, explained by Tudor officials, because its inhabitants were not really civil Englishmen at all.1 These negative observations were not confined to Northumberland. Mervyn James claimed that it took early modern Durham almost a hundred and fifty years for a (Hobbesian) ‘civil society’ to emerge out of the more archaic society that obtained there: a society which had been dominated by ‘great families’ who exercised authority over the gentry and their dependants.2 Such dependencies and allegiances were to be replaced by the concept of a hereditary gentility. With its emphasis on order and decorum, it came to be the defining feature of local ascendancy. The defeat of the northern rising, and the removal of the county’s most powerful family, the Nevilles, advanced the process, but, even so, it was long and drawn out. Thus, both the north-eastern counties continue to be considered in the historiography as out of step with the rest of the kingdom, although not necessarily in precisely the same respect. Variations within the area may have been more nuanced, or finely drawn, than a simple dichotomy between the administrative counties of Northumberland and Durham, however. Nor can it automatically be assumed that Newcastle conformed to either, or any, of those impressions. At the same time, King James VI of Scotland was encouraging his nobility to adopt the kind of behaviour that was more suited to a Christian and civil society and to abandon their ‘barbarous feidis’, as an ‘exampill to the far Hielandis and Bourdouris, quhair sic forme of unquheit is usit’.3 On either side of the Anglo-Scottish border, the official discourse stressed the incivility of those living in the vicinity of the borders. Negative impressions of the north-eastern parts were not confined to the borders: they extended to include the southernmost tip of the bishopric. An 1 Steven G. Ellis, ‘Civilizing Northumberland: representations of Englishness in the Tudor state’, Journal of Historical Sociology, xii (1999), 103–27. 2 James, Family, lineage and civil society, especially the concluding chapter, 177–98. 3 Keith M. Brown, Bloodfeud in Scotland, 1573–1625: violence, justice and politics in early modern society, Edinburgh 1986, 192, 200. The king is asking that they abandon their barbarous feuds as an example to the far highlands and borders, where such form of unquiet is ‘used’.

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account of Toby Matthew’s journey from Oxford to take up his appointment as dean of Durham, in 1583, recorded that the excruciatingly awful night spent at an inn in Northallerton confirmed every rumour heard about the North.4 Nearly thirty years later, when King James’s cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart, was committed to the custody of Matthew, now bishop of Durham, for contracting a marriage in defiance of the king, she made valiant efforts to resist what she regarded as banishment to the outer extremities of the kingdom. She appealed to the law, resorted to pleading extraordinary and life-threatening ill health, and, in a mixture of desperation and repugnance, lamented at her ‘harde doome’ in being ‘cleared to remote parts whose Courts I hold unfitter for the tryall of my offence’.5 The implication was that not only was the area inherently uncivil, even its courts of law were inferior to those of southern England. Yet Arbella Stuart had spent most of her life in the north midlands, which suggests that prejudices about the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom were not confined to the South East. Nevertheless, her reaction was indicative of southern convictions about the condition of the north-eastern territories, in general, such as those expressed by the chronicler of King James’s arrival in the Northumberland borderlands in 1603.6 This chapter will consider how far the north-eastern parts were supposed to be uncivil, or backward, and inferior to the rest of the kingdom. Certainly, the gentlemen of Northumberland were not averse to taking advantage of its dubious reputation. Hence, when they claimed, with regret, that they were unable to contribute to the privy seal loan, issued to the new king in 1604, it was because conditions in their part of the kingdom had not improved since his accession. They explained that this was largely because ‘Justice hath not his dewe course here, as in other Cyvill partes of this Realme’.7 By stressing the uncivil nature of their county, they were adopting the rhetoric employed by a recent verdict on the North. Condemning the border region on account of its failure to match the civility achieved elsewhere in the kingdom, a commentary on border government began:

4 H. Gee, ‘A sixteenth century journey to Durham’, AA, 3rd ser., xiii (1915), 106. This was based on a Latin poem entitled Iter Boreale, composed by Dr Eedes, who accompanied Toby Matthew. 5 BL, MS Add. 34727, fo. 12. After prevaricating for four days at Highgate, early in 1611, the privy council instructed her custodian, Sir James Croft, ‘to carry hir bed and all into hir litter’ to continue her journey north. Although she never completed the journey, the bishop of Durham submitted a bill for £300 for his expenses. BL, Add. Ch 17357. See also BL, MS Harleian 7003, fos 104–5, 152 and passim, and MS Add. 4161 passim. This episode was anticipated when the countess of Oxford endeavoured, equally strenuously, to avoid ‘a winter holiday in Wensleydale’, as an alternative to surrendering her estates to Richard of Gloucester, in 1473. See Pollard, ‘Introduction’, in Pollard, The north of England in the age of Richard III, xi. 6 See above, Chapter 1. 7 SP 14/9A/230. And see above, Chapter 4.

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As it was at the firste, in all other uncivill places, Soe can it not now be expected, that those people can yet for some few yeares (notwithstanding what good mean soever) be reduced to like civll obedience, as the other partes of this kingdome are, that have ever lived in subiection to lawe & Justice, for (being even from their cradells bredd and brought upp in theft, spoyle and bloode), they are by use and custome, become thereunto even naturallie inclined, havinge (as is too well knowne, and the late Judges of that Northern circuite can well reporte, what good proofe & testimonie thereof was given them) never almoste tasted of anie lawe civell or devine . . .8

Civility in north-east England Civility was a defining feature of elites.9 And it was a term that was already in use in early modern England, albeit with diverse meanings.10 In classical Latin, civilitas was usually understood as a political concept, as pertaining to statesmanship, or citizenship – a definition that it retained in its medieval form. The twelfth century also saw a distinction between acceptable, socially superior behaviour and its alternative: rusticitas, or native barbarism.11 In the 1530s, Thomas Starkey pronounced the desirability of a state where ‘all such virtues as to the dignity of man are convenient, living togidder in civil life and politic . . . to their natural perfection’. He explained how ‘men were brought by little and little from the rude life in fields and woods to this civility which you now see established’.12 In other words, it was a long process, which, arguably, had not yet reached the gentry of the north-eastern parts of England.13 According to George Buchanan, writing in the 1560s, and published in 1579, all civil associations are instituted by their own members for the improvement of their welfare and the greater security of their rights.14 Although these treatises were

8 SP 14/5/43. For the theme of civility in official discourse, see Keith Brown, Bloodfeud in Scotland, and Goodman, ‘Religion and warfare’. 9 See TRHS, 6th ser., xii (2002), for the proceedings of a trans-Atlantic conference on ‘English politeness: conduct, social rank and moral virtue’ which determined this. 10 See Peter Burke, Brian Harrison and Paul Slack’s ‘Preface’ to Burke, Harrison and Slack (eds), Civil histories. Essays presented to Sir Keith Thomas, Oxford 2000. 11 Anna Bryson, From courtesy to civility. Changing codes of conduct in early modern England, Oxford 1998, especially ch. 2; John Gillingham, ‘From civilitas to civility: codes of manners in medieval and early modern England’, TRHS, xii (2002), 271–2. For the religious context, see below, Chapter 6. 12 Thomas Starkey, A dialogue between Pole and Lupset, ed. T.F. Mayer (Camden 4th ser., xxxvii, 1989). 13 Indeed, it has been claimed that relative civility and barbarity could be measured in terms of distance from London. See Derek Keene, ‘Metropolis and region: complimentary or conflicting spaces and identities’, September 2004 colloquium. 14 George Buchanan, De iure regni apud Scotos, Dialogus, Edinburgh 1597, 8, cited in Quentin Skinner, Visions of politics, vol. II, Renaissance virtues, Cambridge 2002, 247.

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principally concerned with reform of government and education of the whole polity, they did have implications for those living in the far north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. If any of the gentlemen of Northumberland had consulted Tacitus, available in a newly translated edition, they would have discovered a less attractive aspect of civility not propounded by the theorists of the 1530s and 1560s. Tacitus’ account of Britain’s conquest by the Romans related the fate of the native British, who ‘under the thumb of the Romans “by little and little they proceeded to those provocations of vices” which “the ignorant termed civilitie” but which were in truth nothing more than “a point of their bondage”’.15 Seen from the point of view of the Northumberland gentry, their experiences in the mid-1590s, as they were ousted from positions of responsibility in the government of their county, were very similar to those of their ancient ancestors. This carried with it an inherent contradiction. For, on the one hand, the northeastern confines of the kingdom were being criticised for being turbulent and untamed, but on the other hand, its natural governors were regarded as ineffectual, and unfit to determine its own affairs.16 It also exemplifies the way in which the government regarded this particular outpost of the kingdom as overly independent, not least in respect of the impenetrable nature of border government, giving it a distinctiveness that characterised it as different from elsewhere in England. By imposing a metropolitan civility on that distant corner of the realm, its sense of separateness and autonomy might thereby be suppressed. Westminster’s determination to exert greater control was a tacit acknowledgement that unilateral action, which might imperil the interests of central government, had to be stifled. In 1595, the commissioners appointed to look into the state of the middle march, after thirty-five years under the jurisdiction of the independently minded Sir John Forster, concluded their report by likening the area’s afflicted state to a ‘Gangrene thus noysomely molest[ing the foot of the] kingdome’.17 By so describing it, they were making a profound judgement on its position, both geographically and metaphorically, as well as mirroring the central authorities’ concerns about its remoteness from their control. Physically, the area was as remote from the capital as the feet were from the head. But, as long ago as the twelfth century, the feet had also been perceived – in the metaphor of the republic as a body or ‘the body politic’ – to ‘coincide with peasants perpetually bound to the soil, for whom it is all the more necessary

15

Fower bookes of the histories of Cornelius Tacitus, trans. Henry Savile, Oxford 1591, 250, cited in Skinner, Visions of politics, vol. II, Renaissance virtues, 306. 16 For the distinction between civility as the opposite of wild, rude and barbarous, and civility associated with peace, order, obedience and quietness, see Burke, Harrison and Slack’s ‘Preface’ to Civil histories. 17 BL, MS Cotton Caligula D, ii, fos 230ff. Supplemented (in square brackets) from BL, MS Harleian 4648, fos 250ff. 97

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that the head take precautions, in that they more often meet with accidents’.18 By the late sixteenth century, organic political analogies had reached new levels of sophistication. Increasingly, they were being informed by developments in anatomical medicine and pathology, so that the ills of the body politic were attributed to diseases and afflictions, particularly those which targeted specific parts of the anatomy. Other commentators on the north-eastern reaches of the country employed similar terminology in their accounts of the area’s perceived ills. The anonymous and lengthy appraisal ‘concerning the abused government and afflicted estate of Northumberland’, written to the queen late in 1597, used such metaphors extensively.19 It opened dramatically and graphically by referring to the county’s ‘gastlie visage, her feared hart, and wasted lyms, so tattered and consumed that no man hathe art no[r] no arte hathe tearmes to unfold her diseases’. Nevertheless, the reporter managed a further four pages, doing precisely that. It dwelled on the ‘generall oppression and iniustice’ on the borders, which were ‘mutche decaued and in discoragement’, and catalogued shortcomings in every aspect of Northumberland life. The church and religion were inadequately catered for; there was minimal provision of education at all levels; local justice was discharged irregularly and unsatisfactorily; the conduct of trade was not properly regulated; felons were inappropriately bailed; fines were not levied; sheriffs, wardens and their deputies were defrauding the crown of its dues, while the recent commission appointed to inquire into conditions in the middle march was composed of the worst offenders in that respect; the custodians of castles were not resident in them; Scots held tenements in England; days of truce were not held; and the English warden was openly colluding with his Scottish counterpart, to the detriment of the county. Above all, it declared that, our deseases are manifold & grievous bothe in bodye, sowle, and abylitie, seaminge tedious to all men, strange to many, and uncurable to the moste; and therefore it is that they are not undertaken, but desparatelie left as unknowen maladies to amend by tyme and leasure, which will destroye the whole bodye.

Although it was written specifically to criticise Ralph, Lord Eure, Sir John Forster’s replacement as warden of the middle march, it was a woeful portrayal of a wretched and beleaguered part of England, which threatened the wellbeing of the entire kingdom. And it adopted conventional rhetoric to achieve its ends. The analogy of the body politic had been given wider currency in 1588 by William Averell, in his ‘proto-tabloid’ pamphlet called the Mervailous combat

18 Policraticus: on the frivolities of courtiers and the footprints of philosophers by John of Salisbury, trans. and ed. Carey J. Nederman, Cambridge 1990, 67. 19 SP 59/36/223. See above, Chapter 4.

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of contrarie, apparently produced to lend legitimacy to his own authoritarian political agenda.20 It adapted the fifth-century fable, appropriately associated with the plebeian Roman consul, Menenius Agrippa, about the recalcitrant limbs that refused to nourish the belly, thereby jeopardizing the well-being of the entire body. In Averell’s version, however, the allegory was extended further, with the rebellious hands and feet joined by the ‘envious tongue of false and lying Papists’ who ‘strike terrour in the hearts of the common people, or else to make them dislike of those that are in authoritie’.21 The analogy had a broad application: Sir Christopher Yelverton employed it at the end of the 1598 session of parliament when he recommended good laws to cure ills in the body politic.22 When the bishop of Durham and the assize judges had drawn the earl of Huntingdon’s attention to the generally lamentable state of counties Durham and Northumberland, in August 1595, they stressed the importance of ‘timely reformacon before the sore shall become Incurable’. While Sir William Bowes and his fellow commissioners’ subsequent examination of the middle march, later that year, found it was exhibiting precisely those symptoms described by Averell: inferior, inadequate governance and the perennial popish menace. The diagnosis was clear and, accordingly, they appealed to Burghley as the ‘happy instrument . . . timely to cure’ the diseased patient.23 The anonymous assessment of Northumberland in 1597 also employed the rhetoric of the ailing body politic, which was in urgent need of a cure. The warden of the middle march, and agent of central government, Lord Eure, was signally failing to provide the necessary relief to those for whom he was responsible. He was expressly castigated because ‘he cures not the affliction of Jacob’, thereby bringing biblical connotations to the suffering of the extended middle march’s populace, from the borders into western Durham. Hence, their self-appointed spokesman identified them with God’s chosen people, Jacob’s descendants, the Israelites, who happened to be described as coming ‘from the north country’.24 Yet the Israelites, a dispossessed people who had been subject to alien oppression and had endured grievous wounds, were sustained by the Lord’s promise to Jacob that ‘I will restore health to thee, and I will heal thee of thine wounds.’ They were further assured that eventually ‘their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governors shall proceed from the midst of them’.25 The inhabitants of the troubled upland parts of north-eastern

20 Jonathan Gil Harris, Foreign bodies and the body politic. Discourses of social pathology in early modern England, Cambridge 1998. 21 Harris, Foreign bodies, 40–1; William Averell, A mervailous combat of contraries, malignatlie striving in the members of mans body, allegoricallie representing unto us the envied state of our flourishing common wealth, London 1588, cited in Harris, Foreign bodies, 43. 22 Proceedings in the parliaments of Elizabeth I, ed. T.E. Hartley, Leicester 1995, iii, 198. 23 SP 59/30/117; BL, MS Cotton Caligula D ii, fos 203ff; BL, MS Harleian 4648, fos 250ff. 24 Jeremiah, ch. 31, verse 8. 25 Jeremiah, ch. 30, verses 17 and 21.

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England looked for similar reassurances from central government that they would be released from the malign consequences of Eure’s government of the middle march. How far was Newcastle an oasis of tranquillity and compliance in an otherwise turbulent part of the kingdom, as perceived by William Camden?26 And were its residents (especially those hard-nosed entrepreneurs, the grand lessees) any more tamed than their rural counterparts? In the 1590s the privy council had ordered the bishop of Durham to look into the high price of coal imposed by ‘the richer sorte of the towne of New Castle’ whose ‘covertous desire of excessive gain to themselves’ will result in the poor being ‘utterly destitute of that fuell’.27 In a part of England that was continually claiming poverty, the urban elites of Newcastle, especially the coal-owners and traders, were distinguished by their perceived wealth, thus divorcing them, economically at least, from the rest of the north-eastern parts. The monopoly over the ‘new Peruvian gold’ enjoyed by Newcastle’s ‘grand lessees’ not only attracted attention, but it was also widely challenged. At some point in Elizabeth’s reign it was proposed that ‘a staple of new chastel coles’ should be established on the south coast, between Sandwich and Weymouth. In justification it was argued that coal was ‘growen to such estimation . . . it is to be accompted one principall commoditie of this realme & to be used as the blessing of God bestowed . . . to benefite the realme & subjects thereof’ – in a similar manner to the way it was regarded that the profits from salt contributed to the material well-being of France. Not only would the queen ‘have her custome trulie answered & rather increased’ but also it would bring much-needed employment for her subjects and navy.28 Other ingenious strategies were regularly concocted to tap Newcastle’s perceived wealth. In 1592, William Borough, clerk of the ships, devised a scheme to finance the completion of Plymouth Castle that included levying an extra tax on Newcastle coal. A certain Bridges further suggested that the Newcastle coal masters could bear a tax double that proposed by Borough, to help offset the expense of repulsing the Spanish, given that Newcastle was not otherwise subject to parliamentary taxation.29 Although these proposals came to nothing, serious efforts were made in 1591 to regulate the export of coal and control its quality. Accordingly, a proclamation to deal with the problem was conceived. An early draft made the point that the increased demand for coal by the domestic market meant that it ‘cannot conveniently be spared’ for export and, moreover, that the ‘better sort’ was being conveyed out of the realm, leaving insufficient for ‘our natural and

26

See below, p. 108. APC, 1595–1596, 31–2. 28 SP 12/105/30. Undated. Nef suggests it was written in 1597, while Dendy proposes 1575, which seems more likely. Nef, The British coal industry, ii, 216; Dendy, Hostmen’s records, xxix. 29 SP 12/241/75, SP 12/257/63. 27

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lovinge subjects’.30 It would seem that the commercialism of the Newcastle grand lessees conflicted with England’s best interests just as the lawlessness of the county gentry did. The clause did not form part of a later draft, but it hints at the passions that could be aroused by coal.31 No proclamation was finally promulgated, but there was no shortage of candidates offering to undertake the task of monitoring the export of coal and ensuring that the best remained in England. Most persistent was John Thornborough, the dean of York, who petitioned Burghley endlessly for the responsibility of overseeing coal exports. Burghley, who could see the implications of such a move, observed that the suit ‘to restraine all strangers beinge in amitie with her matie to carye any other coles than the patante shall allowe, whereas by specialle treatyes her matie is bowned to the contrarie: by which example other princes maie do the like, as to forbid all good wines or wines of the best sort’ to England. He further enquired whether Newcastle was to be the sole object of Thornborough’s attention.32 Thornborough explained himself by claiming that he only intended to ‘restrayne the transportacon of a moyetie of the better sorte of coles to serve the realme withal which nowe are all transported beyond the sea’, while Newcastle, he insisted, would not be prejudiced, for the 2d a chalder, which he required to ensure inferior coals were not mixed with good, would be borne by the purchaser. He added, somewhat maliciously, that this was in spite of the fact that Newcastle was levying an additional tax of 2s and 2s 6d on a chalder of coal. Above all, he maintained that supplying London with suitable coals was his sole purpose. That the dean of York should identify with the interests of the capital over fellow northerners seems perverse. However, he was notorious for his reluctance to humour civic pride and was not averse to coming into conflict with city governors throughout his career, later becoming an example of the kind of ‘proud prelacy’ to which lay society was ‘allergic’ when he was elevated to the episcopacy in Bristol.33

30

BL, MS Lansdowne 65, fo. 22. It also implied that their activities could be construed as tantamount (almost) to treason. BL, MS Lansdowne 67, fo. 56. An even later draft is printed in Tudor economic documents, ed. R.H. Tawney and Eileen Power, London 1924, ii, 277, who date it at 1592; and in Tudor royal proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, London 1969, iii, 154, who date it at 1595. 32 BL, MS Lansdowne 67, fo. 50. 33 In 1624, he was in conflict with the common council of Bristol, when he was bishop, by insisting that a double-tiered gallery they erected for themselves in the cathedral was demolished. See Fincham, Prelate as pastor, 79 and 90. He quarrelled with Lord Sheffield, lord president of the Council of the North, in 1607. See HMC, Salisbury, xix, 274. And he managed to offend both houses of parliament by writing one of the longest tracts concerning the union, which breached parliamentary privilege and for which he was required to apologise. See, Galloway, Union, 30, 23. 31

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The mayor, aldermen, and even the sheriff of Newcastle wrote repeatedly to Burghley throughout 1591 and into 1592, reciting their objections to a proposed imposition on coal.34 They explained that it would lead to their ruin, which would impact upon the queen, as the owner of most of the coal mines, for they would be unable to pay her rent and fines. Further duties on coal would make mining it unviable, leading to 1,500 miners and mariners being thrown out of work, raising the prospect of the consequent evils attendant on large numbers of suddenly unemployed workers. The petitioners went on to declare that they would be unable to maintain the fabric of the town, which, they reminded Burghley, was the chief bulwark against Scotland. The queen would lose customs and the Scots would step into the resultant gap in the market. This was a compelling rationalisation of a state of affairs that was peculiar to Newcastle, as a strategically and economically important town, by a selfconsciously distinctive elite that was determined to maintain its very distinctive privileges. The episode was not resolved until 1528, when the privy council struck a deal with the hostmen which resulted in their being incorporated as a separate trading company.35 In the next reign, precisely the same arguments employed in the 1590s were applied when a bill was introduced into the 1604 session of parliament to modify the 1529 statute which had given Newcastle a monopoly to ship coal. The members of parliament for Newcastle, George Selby and Henry Chapman, prominent hostmen, put up a spirited defence of their privileges, based on their specialist knowledge of conditions prevailing along the river Tyne. Rather disingenuously, they also warned that tampering with the statute might result in ‘the danger of landing of Jesuite preestes and other daungerous persons’. But, above all, they argued, any challenge to the coal-mine owners would redound upon the king by way of lost customs and would jeopardise the supply of coal for London.36 The bill was rejected on its second reading.37 Significantly, while the mayor of London, John Harte, was determined to secure the supply of suitable coal for the capital, he was equally resolved that its operation would not benefit profiteers at the expense of the citizens of London,38 suggesting a common identity of interest between town governors. At the same time, sectional interests in Newcastle were as prepared as those of the county gentry to exploit its proximity to Scotland, as well as its reputation for being uncomfortably disposed towards Catholic recusancy, to achieve their ends. Those sectional interests also resulted in the privy council being obliged to become involved in the affairs of Newcastle’s government in the 1590s. For the grand lessees’ grip on the coal trade – and the way in which they virtually 34 BL, MS Lansdowne 67, fos 62, 207; MS Lansdowne 69, fo. 68; MS Lansdowne 71, fo. 24. 35 Levine and Wrightson, Making of an industrial society, 22. 36 SP 14/18/79, SP 14/18/81. 37 CJ, 228, 229. 38 BL, MS Lansdowne 65, fo. 36; and see Nef, The British coal industry, ii, 215.

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monopolised the mayoralty and shrievalty of Newcastle and almost invariably held the town’s parliamentary seats – did not go unchallenged. Their domination of civic government was causing resentment among those who did not share the supremacy enjoyed by the grand lessees. The conflict, which reached a climax in 1597, appeared to be relatively straightforward. It began at the end of 1596, when Henry Sanderson, customer of the port of Newcastle, wrote to Lord Burghley about the abuses of the grand lessees, and the misfortunes experienced by those he specifically designated as ‘non grand lessees’.39 He drew particular attention to the difficulties encountered by aldermen Lionel Maddison, Robert Dudley and Edward Lewen, each of whom had served as mayor of Newcastle. However, their endeavours to restore the grand lease to the entire corporation of Newcastle, to which, it was thought by some, it rightfully belonged, meant they had subsequently failed to achieve high office in town government. The grand lessees, led by Henry Anderson and William Selby, wrote to Burghley’s secretary (Michael Hicks), in their capacity as mayor and aldermen of Newcastle, to discredit Sanderson for the way in which he ‘haithe wickedlye begun and more than uncharitablye pursued this bad begun course’. Maddison, Dudley and fourteen other aldermen and burgesses responded, at great length, complaining to Burghley about Anderson and Selby’s manipulation of the grand lease as well as numerous other abuses.40 The two factions continued to lobby Burghley and his secretary, while the mayor and principal aldermen resorted to giving ‘inducements’ to the queen’s favourite, the earl of Essex (whose sister was married to the earl of Northumberland).41 They also appealed to the privy council. Not the least of their concerns was the protection of their municipal and commercial privileges. Recognising this, the council instructed the Council of the North, to whom the case had been committed, to refer the case to them if it should ‘tend to the derogacion and impeachment of theire charters and liberties’. This might have been a tactful concession to urban regard for their position, and, by extension, their identity, on the council’s part. However, a further letter, allowing for the case to be heard at York, advised the Council of the North to ensure that the Newcastle party had sufficient legal representation, because the legal position, especially regarding the question of municipal privilege, might be shaky. The case was finally settled, on 15 December 1598, in favour of Anderson, Selby and the rest of the grand lessees; although, in return for the incorporation of the hostmen as a separate company, they felt secure enough to assign the grand lease to the mayor and burgesses of Newcastle.42 No doubt the privy council felt that ensuring the 39

BL, MS Lansdowne 81, fo. 104. BL, MS Lansdowne 85, fo. 55; SP 12/263/72. 41 SP 12/264/117, SP 12/266/60; HMC, Salisbury, viii, 419. 42 APC, 1595–1596, 381–2; APC, 1596–1597, 512–13; APC, 1597–1598, 225–6, 627–8; APC, 1598–1599, 181–2, 199, 295–6, 357–8. And see Levine and Wrightson, Making of an industrial society, 22. 40

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continued supply of coal for the capital would be best guaranteed by retaining the goodwill and cooperation of Newcastle’s major coal-owners. But the issue was more complicated than a simple contest between the greater and lesser Newcastle merchants. In the first place, Sanderson and Dudley were trying to muscle in on the lucrative coal trade, having taken a lease of coal mines in Lamesley, adjoining Whickham, in 1594, before finding they were having difficulties trading it.43 Another factor was religion.44 For Newcastle was still subject to the same kind of internal divisions as the wider county of Northumberland and the diocese of Durham. As well as protecting its existing privileges from internal and external challenges, Newcastle also aspired to extend the geographic scope of its influence on Tyneside. In March 1553, an act of parliament designed to detach Gateshead from the bishopric and annex it to Newcastle had been passed, which was repealed two years later in the reign of Mary.45 This particular episode was probably as much to do with the duke of Northumberland’s ambitions as the Newcastle elite’s commercial designs.46 However, the two issues – of curbing the bishop’s authority and Newcastle’s expansionist interests – had long been closely entwined and had impacted heavily upon the affairs of Gateshead. For example, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and into the sixteenth, the crown was obliged to intervene in disputes between the bishop of Durham and the burgesses of Newcastle concerning the rights to trade coal from the bishop’s mines in Whickham and Gateshead.47 Another attempt to unite the towns of Gateshead and Newcastle, in 1576, was robustly countered by the borough of Gateshead. In a letter to Burghley the burgesses of the town explained that favouring the suit of Newcastle would ‘tourne to the utter overthrowe of the whole Borough of Gateshead . . . to the private proffitte of a fewe of the said towne of Newcastell’. Because, by then, it was the unusual circumstances of an elite within an elite in Newcastle that was driving events. The burgesses of Gateshead followed through, the next week, with a petition composed of ten points, rehearsing the ‘inconveniences ensuinge by the unitinge of the same townes unto the said Borough of Gateside to the utter undoing of the poor inhabytantes thereof’ should the bill succeed.48 It did not. But, even so, the inhabitants of Gateshead continued to complain about the ‘sondrey wrongs and oppressions’ perpetrated upon them by the aldermen and others of Newcastle, in March 1597, necessitating the privy

43 DUR2, Durham chancery, bills and answers, bdl. 1 (Dudley and Sanderson v. Gasgoigne), cited in Nef, The British coal industry, ii, 122n. 44 This is dealt with more fully in Chapter 6. 45 7 Edward VI, cap. 10; 1 Mary, session 3, cap. 3. 46 David Loades, ‘The dissolution of the diocese of Durham, 1553–4’, in Marcombe, Last principality. 47 Nef, The British coal industry, i, 141, 148. 48 SP 12/107/54, SP 12/107/76.

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council to instruct the bishop to intervene.49 By July 1610, the king himself had to take a hand, when he was required to pronounce upon the question of impositions on coal being levied on Blythe and Sunderland, ‘it beinge conceaved that they were members of Newcastle (and soe within theire commission)’. King James declared that, as they were ‘Quite distinct, Lett the said pretended imposicion be laide downe, and noe more taken’.50 For the time being, Gateshead’s position as a separate borough was assured. At the close of the sixteenth century ‘the oligarchical practices of the Newcastle hostmen had legal sanction and the blessing of the crown’.51 King James, on the other hand, endeavoured to curb the abuses of the Newcastle coal merchants by occasioning certain of them to be tried in Star Chamber. Theirs was a threat to the well-being of the kingdom, different from the Northumberland gentry, but no less ominous, as was made plain in one of King James’s last proclamations, issued on 16 February 1625. For it was designed to deal with the ‘many and great deceits, and abuses, done and offered unto Us, and Our loving Subjects of this Our realme of England by the Oastmen, Diggers, Getters and Traders for Coale in the Coalemines of Newcastle . . .’.52 Newcastle’s coal-owning oligarchy represented ‘a great and generall abuse and enormity to Our whole Realme’, right up until the end of James’s reign. This was another instance of Newcastle displaying a quite distinct countenance from that presented by the counties of Durham and Northumberland. The town also emerges as having been no more amenable and compliant than any other part of the north-eastern corner of the kingdom.

‘A rude and heady people’: revisited The impression of Newcastle conforming to the kind of ‘English civility’ which the government was striving to impose upon the whole kingdom appears to have been little more than an illusion. This raises the question of whether other assumptions have been similarly misconceived. Returning to the metaphor of the ailing body politic, there is more than a faint suspicion that the patient might have been malingering. A more forensic examination of the north-eastern parts may provide a more promising prognosis. For instance, Northumberland’s depiction of its particularly lawless population warrants a reassessment. For concerns about escalating lawlessness in the 1590s were common to the whole country.53 In Kent, William Lambarde, author of Eirenarcha, a working

49

APC, 1596–1597, 219. BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fo. 148r. 51 Levine and Wrightson, Making of an industrial society, 22. 52 PRO SP14/98/29; Larkin and Hughes, Stuart proclamations, 619–25. 53 The debate among historians about the severity and extent of that disorder has reached the point where the period is no longer regarded as catastrophic as previously thought, 50

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handbook for justices of the peace, was making similarly gloomy observations about the state of his county in his charges to quarter sessions throughout the decade. His reference to ‘the malicious iniquity of this present age, which, taking the bridle in the teeth, rusheth out and runneth on to all disolution’, was regularly reiterated and its cause attributed to the poverty and dearth that marked the last years of Elizabeth’s reign.54 When the rhetoric is compared with the reality, Northumberland does not emerge as significantly less lawabiding than elsewhere in England. Notwithstanding the obvious difficulties in reconstructing patterns of crime in Elizabethan and early Stuart England from incomplete records, certain broad conclusions can be drawn. For example, a comparison of extant presentments and indictments before quarter sessions in Northumberland and Worcestershire reveals a similar rate of crime. 55 The difference was in the nature of the offences. In Northumberland they appear to have consisted overwhelmingly of livestock thefts, whereas the Worcestershire bench dealt with a much wider variety of business. Even the incidence of murder was not markedly worse in Northumberland. Between 1597 and 1604 there were twenty recorded murders in the Vetera Indictamenta, though its curious organisation resulted in one murder being included three times,56 making the figure in fact eighteen. In Hertfordshire the number in the same period was twelve while Sussex had a total of twenty-six.57 Ian Archer has concluded that the reality of conditions in the 1590s was that there was ‘a perceived crisis’,58 which was probably as applicable to the north-eastern parts as elsewhere in England. When specific incidents are scrutinised, it emerges that they often concealed deeper rifts within Northumberland. For instance, Lambarde’s complaint about the prevalence of informers motivated by the desire to be ‘revenged upon some adversary’59 was matched at the Newcastle assizes in 1602. On 6 July, George Muschamp presented Henry and Oswald Collingwood of Etall and another gentleman, Edward Craster of Craster, together with five yeomen and two Scots, at the general gaol delivery, for committing a serious assault on Ralph although conditions certainly were not ‘rosy’ either. See Ian W. Archer, The pursuit of stability. Social relations in Elizabethan London, Cambridge 1991, 9ff. 54 William Lambarde and local government. His ‘Ephemeris’ and twenty-nine charges to juries and commissions, ed. Conyers Read, New York 1962, 148, 182. 55 NRO (Morpeth), QS1, passim; Worcestershire county records. Calendar of the Quarter Session papers, 1591–1643, ed. J.W. Willis Bund, Worcestershire Historical Society, Worcester 1900, passim. 56 NRO (Morpeth), QS1, fos 14r, 25v, 91v. 57 Calendar of assize records. Hertfordshire indictments, Elizabeth I, ed. J.S. Cockburn, London 1975, 130–65; idem, Calendar of assize records. Hertfordshire indictments, James I, London 1975, 18; idem, Calendar of assize records. Sussex indictments, Elizabeth I, London 1975, 333–422; idem, Calendar of assize records. Sussex indictments, James I, London 1975, 3–5. Of course, the three counties did not have comparable population sizes, but the similarity in murder rates is striking. 58 Archer, The pursuit of stability, 14. 59 Lambarde and local government, 126. 106

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Selby. After three days of deliberation the assize judges, Thomas Walmesley and John Saville, discharged the accused on the grounds that Mr Muschamp’s charge was one of ‘playne mallice’.60 And, indeed, there had been a longrunning dispute between Muschamp and the Collingwoods which had reached a violent climax the previous year. Muschamp had been driven to complain to the privy council that he was persistently hindered in the exercise of his office as sheriff of Northumberland by Henry, Oswald and Luke Collingwood. The antagonism resulted in an armed confrontation during which Luke Collingwood was mortally wounded.61 The friction between Muschamp and his neighbours might be explained by the fact that he was one of the few native Northumberland gentlemen who survived the purge of the magisterial bench which occurred in 1596 as one of the manifestations of central government’s tougher policies towards Northumberland in the 1590s. It was the singularity of this that provoked the offence, rather than the intrinsic lawlessness of the north-eastern parts. The late sixteenth century also witnessed the continued conflict between urban and rural elites for supremacy in the civility stakes. This was a civility that was demonstrable by the display of social grace and refinement. Their relative claims to sophistication are well illustrated in the tract, Cyvile and uncyvile life, written in 1579, which took the form of a dialogue between two advocates of urban and rural life. Among the various arguments upon which the contest turned was that a country upbringing resulted in the sons of gentlemen developing certain enduring social flaws that took some ironing out. They were left with such ‘clownish speech, and other ungentlemanly jestures, as is a good while (yea many times never) that those rusticities bee leafte’. The country-educated gentlemen were so inferior to those raised in the city ‘that you shall even at the first sight, perceave by their speech, jesture, and behaviour that their educations are diverse’. Young gentlemen from the north country, and especially its north-eastern reaches, were doubly handicapped in respect of their accents, because, when coupled with their vocabulary, which embraced Scottish words, north-easterners’ speech was especially incomprehensible. Chaucer’s characters from Northumberland, in The Reeve’s Tale, were a case in point. According to the champion of urban life, the company of country gentlemen was marked by ‘the rustication of their houses and garments’. Above all, was their inability to talk about anything but their ancestry, lands, wives and children, the implication being that more intellectually stimulating company was to be found in the city.62 Thus, the archetypal bucolic country squire of the eighteenth century had its origins in the sixteenth century.

60

NRO (Morpeth), QS1, fo. 22v. HMC, Salisbury, xv, 585. 62 Cyvile and uncyvile life: a discourse where is disputed, what order of Lyfe best beseemeth a Gentleman, in W. Carew Hazlitt (ed.), Inedited tracts: illustrating the manners, opinions, and occupations of Englishmen during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Roxburgh Society, Edinburgh 1868, 68–9, 84, 87–8. 61

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In the north-eastern parts of the realm the differentiation between the country and the town was clear, particularly the contrast between the allegedly barbarous and backward gentlemen from Northumberland and the more cultivated or sophisticated citizens of Newcastle – which was also superior to the garrison town of Berwick. The disparity was demonstrated on King James’s journey south in April 1603. After he left Berwick, he made his way to Newcastle, where the aldermen, the best commoners, and the mayor met him. Presumably, the entrance into Newcastle passed off without the farcical incident encountered on his arrival into Berwick: it certainly did not attract adverse comment from the southern chronicler. The chronicler did record that the king stayed at the mayor’s house from Saturday to Tuesday. He went to church on the Sunday, where the bishop of Durham preached a sermon, and he spent the Monday sightseeing around the town. There, he found the ‘manner and beautie of the bridge, and keye, [to be] one of the best in the north parts’.63 As far as his new subjects in England were concerned, it seems that the further the king got from the ostensibly ‘uncivilising’ influence of his native Scotland, the better.64 At the end of the sixteenth century, William Camden had averred that the only tolerable part of Northumberland was Newcastle and its immediate surroundings. He referred to Johnson’s celebration of British cities, which described Newcastle thus: Placed on a lofty rock, it thence surveys Dame nature’s wonders, or with art conveys Their use to others . . .65

Thereby Johnson conveyed the nurturing character of Newcastle. Otherwise, Camden’s description was entirely related to its physical nature. Such impressions survived well into the twentieth century. Trevor-Roper was convinced that it was the ‘merchant-freemen’ of Newcastle ‘who, in a barbarous country, among illiterate and boorish squireens, constituted a single element of civilisation’.66 While the role of Newcastle in rendering the northeastern corner of England civil continues to be axiomatic to some historians. According to Collinson, it was Newcastle that ‘transformed the civilisation

63

The true narratione, in Nichols, Progresses. And see above, Chapter 1. A contribution to the union debates in 1604 declared that, ‘Nature maketh that place most temperate for the ayre: pleasath for the feelds & fertill for the land that is scituate on the Sowth East as Ingland lieth from Scotland.’ It continued, blithely confident in the superiority of any part of England to Scotland, ‘this is proved within this Iland, in Scotland those parts are most temperate, wholesome and fertill which lie nearest Ingland’. See BL, MS Cotton Titus F IV, fo. 57. 65 Camden’s Britannia. The poem was later incorporated into William Gray’s Chorographia or a survey of Newcastle upon Tyne: 1649. 66 Trevor-Roper, ‘The bishopric of Durham and the capitalist reformation’, 47. 64

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of its hinterlands in Durham and Northumberland, indeed had introduced into that region for the first time what the Elizabethans could recognise as civilisation’.67 He claims that this transformation did not occur until the 1630s. But, in respect of sociability – yet another aspect of civility – Newcastle was influencing its environs long before that. A study of sociability in the North East of England between 1600 and 1750 has challenged the traditional view that patterns of behaviour changed dramatically after the Restoration, and demonstrates that there was much greater continuity from at least the late sixteenth century, at a number of levels and across the social spectrum.68 Records of trade companies and guilds, which were not only economic institutions but also played an important social role in early modern towns, provide ample evidence of a very particular sociability. Significantly, Newcastle had thirty-six guilds, compared to the city of Durham’s sixteen, suggesting a lively social intercourse in the town. The atmosphere of the most important of those, especially the hostmen and merchant adventurers in Newcastle, was altered by the increase in the sons of gentlemen as apprentices in the late sixteenth century,69 making for a more distinctively elite sociability. Horse-races were held regularly in Newcastle at Killingworth Moor from at least 1621,70 which no doubt drew people into the town. And there is no reason to assume that Newcastle, like its counterparts elsewhere in the kingdom, did not attract an influx of visitors when the assize judges arrived or when the quarter sessions were sitting, who would require entertainment. Certainly, ‘some gentlemen of Northumberland had their houses’ in the ‘many ancient buildings, houses and streets’ in the ‘ancient towne of Pampden’, while the Sandhill was occupied by ‘stately houses for merchants’, and gentlemen had houses on Westgate Street.71 This challenges the conventional view that the gentry did not resort to towns and cities with any regularity until the later seventeenth century, which, it was claimed, was induced by the developing urban culture that occurred then (not earlier), and which led to their buying town houses.72 While the tract on Cyvile and uncyvile life, written a hundred

67

Patrick Collinson, The birthpangs of Protestant England, Basingstoke 1988, repr. 1991, 40. Rebecca King, ‘Aspects of sociability in the north east of England, 1600–1750’, PhD diss., Durham 2001. 69 King, ‘Sociability in the north east of England’, 33, 36, 38. Apparently, the merchant adventurers were attracting about one-third of their recruits from the sons of those styling themselves gentlemen by the early 1600s. See C.W. Brooks, ‘Apprenticeship, social mobility and the middling sort, 1550–1800’, in J. Barry and Brooks (eds), The middling sort of people: culture, society and politics in England, 1550–1800, London 1994, 54–62. 70 King, ‘Sociability in the north east of England’, 134. 71 Gray’s Chorographia. 72 Heal and Holmes, Gentry, 307; Peter Borsay, ‘The English urban renaissance: the development of provincial urban culture c1680–c1760, in Borsay (ed.), The eighteenth century town, Oxford 1989, 159ff; Peter Clark (ed.), The Cambridge urban history, vol. 2: 1540–1840, Cambridge 2000, 6; Michael Reed, ‘The urban landscape, 1540–1700’, in Clark, Cambridge urban history, 296, 311. 68

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years before that, had been prompted by the growing English practice, more usual on the continent, of gentlemen who, ‘falling from the use of their Ancestors, doo now eyther altogether (or very much) leave to dwell in their country houses, inhabiting citties and great Townes’.73 It has already been noted how Newcastle’s great traders had become financiers for the whole of the North of England.74 Currently, work on the church, religion and society in medieval Newcastle, up to the mid-sixteenth century, is reassessing the town’s role as an ecclesiastical as well as a business and social centre.75 All of which suggests that Newcastle was a vibrant focal point at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Newcastle was also the location of a ‘free school’ for the education of its freemen’s sons. It has been posited that, from the sixteenth century, English boroughs saw a flourishing school as a sound investment in status which, in turn, helped to produce concentrations of literate people. There is no reason to think that Newcastle did not share these aspirations: its school certainly matched the national picture in sending at least one boy (on average) to Cambridge between 1550 and 1660.76 At the same time, civility was fostered through extending the education of the elites’ sons, beyond the more martial requirements of the medieval period. In particular, it has been argued that ‘by the later sixteenth century most English gentlemen experienced some elementary and secondary education’ while ‘the gentry’s practice of sending their sons to the universities and Inns of Court was becoming very common’.77 But according to the invective from the anonymous commentator of 1597, the elites of Northumberland’s borders measured up very poorly against others of their sort in subscribing to the notion that a new, more academic education was an essential component in a gentleman’s upbringing. One of the many complaints about the ‘afflicted state of Northumberland’ was that its youth ‘shall not find so muche as a grammer school in all Northumb’. It has been pointed out that 92 out of 146 gentlemen of Northumberland failed to sign their names on the supremacy oath in 1560. Early in 1605, when the privy council was bombarded with reports about the dismal state of the north-eastern uplands, Lord Sheffield, lord president of the Council of the North, lamented

73

Cyvile and uncyvile life, 12–13. See above, Chapter 2. 75 Anthony Goodman, ‘The church, religion and society in medieval Newcastle’, in A.J. Pollard and Diana Newton (eds), The history of Newcastle-upon-Tyne before 1700 (forthcoming). 76 R.A. Houston, Scottish literacy and the Scottish identity. Illiteracy and society in Scotland and northern England, 1600–1800, Cambridge 1985, 51–2; Brian Mains and Anthony Tuck, Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, a history of the school in its community, Stocksfield 1986, 6. They make the point that a grounding in Latin was crucial for the industrialists of Newcastle, since that was the language in which technical works from abroad were produced (p. 3). 77 Bryson, From courtesy to civility, 145. 74

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that ‘it is a thing pitiful to see, especially in these remote places, how weak in understanding the means of their salvation the most people are for want of teaching’, especially in the border parts in his jurisdiction.78 Yet there were certainly schools in the low-lying parts of Durham and Northumberland. For, despite the fact that the high incidence of recusancy in the area meant that there was a proliferation of private tutors, there were schools in Durham as well as in Morpeth, Hexham, Alnwick and Berwick, where Latin, grammar, rhetoric, versifying, writing and Greek were taught. There were also schools for boys from a more modest background in county Durham, most famously that at Kepier, established by ‘the apostle of the north’, Bernard Gilpin, and John Heath, in 1574, and later at Houghton-le-Spring.79 Gilpin went on to support his ex-scholars in their university studies and thereafter. Many gentlemen’s sons, who either attended the schools in Durham and Northumberland, or were educated at home, went on to the universities at Oxford and Cambridge.80 No less than fifty-six students at Oxford between 1569 and 1625 came from the two north-eastern counties and Newcastle, and more than seventy attended Cambridge in the same period. This goes a very long way towards belying the traditional view that their inhabitants were uncultured and unlettered, even in the upland parts of Northumberland. George Collingwood of Eslington and his near neighbour, Robert Clavering of Callaly, north of the Coquet, and Christopher Featherstonehaugh, of Featherstonehaugh Castle in South Tynedale, accompanied their peers from the lowland parts of Durham and Northumberland to Cambridge, while earlier Claverings went to Oxford. Students from the two north-eastern counties tended to be drawn to Queen’s, University or Trinity Colleges, at Oxford, and almost half of those who went up to Cambridge were members of St John’s and Christ’s Colleges. Queen’s College was originally founded in the fourteenth century for a membership from Cumberland and Westmorland; University College was founded by William of Durham in the thirteenth century, and Trinity, founded in the sixteenth century, was on the site of a pre-Reformation foundation for the monks of Durham to study. Thus, the choice of college reflected a close northern, if not north-eastern, affiliation.81 Colleges seemed to operate a clear quota system in their admittance procedures. Thus, the

78

SP 59/36/223; Heal and Holmes, Gentry, 258. HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 125. Meikle, A British frontier?, 165–6; Watts, From border to middle shire, 89; Victoria history of the county of Durham, ed. William Page, London 1905–28, i, 365–400, especially 377–8. For Bernard Gilpin, see his DNB entry, by David Marcombe. 80 See Alumni Oxon and Alumni Cantab. Occasionally the Cambridge register recorded where the students attended school, and all the north-eastern schools are mentioned. 81 Another line of enquiry has found that the early modern universities ‘in the religious context . . . were nodal institutions that contributed to a process of regional differentiation’. See Victor Morgan, ‘Cambridge university, religion and the regions, 1560–1640’, in Edward Royle (ed.), Regional studies in the history of religion in Britain since the later middle ages, Humberside 1984. 79

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foundress of Christ’s College, Lady Margaret Beaufort (who also founded St John’s College), stipulated that half of its twelve fellows should come from the nine counties north of the river Trent. The college statutes further ordered that, of the forty-seven scholars, twenty-three (but no more) must always come from those same counties, with not more than three taken from any one county at the same time. The statutes of Peterhouse College also required it to take half of its fellows from the northern counties, but in 1582 only three of its fifteen fellows were from the North, according to its master, Dr Andrew Perne.82 However, as he was presenting this as a reason not to admit a candidate of Lord Burghley’s who came from the South, this may well have been a prevarication. Perhaps more revealing was Dr Perne’s justification for there being a system of apportionment in place to ensure a balance of northern and southern students. For he explained that it was ‘for avoiding factions, which at this day begin to increase in the university’. There was a long tradition of young gentlemen from the North, who went south to finish their education, encountering southern prejudices – from at least the fourteenth century, when Chaucer introduced the two, naïve young students from Northumberland in his Reeve’s Tale. It is possible that Chaucer, from the South, chose to assign to them the unidentified ‘Strother’ as their place of origin because ‘strother’ was northern dialect for ‘a place overgrown with brushwood’, thus inferring that they came from ‘the sticks’. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Chaucer actually knew the two of them personally, or knew of them, which perhaps arose as a result of Queen Philippa holding the lordship of Tynedale, or through their connections with the court; and their inclusion in the Reeve’s Tale was perhaps an in-joke.83 More contemporaneous was the tale of George Dobson, from Durham, sent by his guardian to Christ’s College, where he was instrumental in settling the ‘controuersie betwixt the Northerne & Kentishmen’, which was threatening to reach alarming proportions.84 The antics of Dobson, and, before that, Chaucer’s students from Northumberland, are useful for reflecting possible tensions between northerners and southerners, although both were written for comic effect, and to entertain. But such encounters were also a fact of university life, at Cambridge at least, with the rivalry between Trinity and Christ’s Colleges occasionally erupting into violence. Trinity, founded by Henry VIII, had soon eclipsed the ‘northern’ college of St John’s, in most respects, including the

82 John Piele, Christ’s college, London 1900, 14–15; HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 203–4. None of them appeared to be from the north-eastern counties. See also the much more recent study by M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The king’s mother. Lady Margaret Beaufort, countess of Richmond and Derby, Cambridge 1992, 202–31. 83 I owe this to Andy King. A more detailed discussion will appear in Pollard and King, ‘“Northumbria” in the late middle ages’, in Colls and Lancaster, Northumbria; Anthony Tuck, ‘The Percies and the community of Northumberland in the later fourteenth century’ in Tuck and Goodman, War and border societies, 191. 84 Dobson’s drie bobbes, ed. E.A. Horsman, Oxford 1955, 90ff.

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scale of the celebrated comedies it staged. These comedies came to be the scene of riots between the two colleges, as the rivalry between the ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ colleges was polarised. They reached a climax in 1611, when one of the musicians was warned ‘to take heed at the comedyes for there were sturdy northern fellows in Snt Iohns College that would be there with Clubbes’.85 There were also happier encounters. For example, marriages contracted as a result of associations forged at the universities suggest that networks were built that crossed the North–South divide. It has already been noted that Clement Colmore and William James, who attended university at Oxford, married Mary Barnard from Oxford and Catherine Risby from Abingdon, respectively. In addition, Francis Brandling, who was up at Oxford in 1611, at the same time as Edward Pitt, son and heir of Sir William Pitt from Dorset, married, as his second wife, Edward’s sister Elizabeth, indicating that their acquaintance survived some time after they left university.86 On the other hand, Toby Ewbank, from Durham, who left Oxford in 1605, and whose father Henry was married to Anne Sampson from Christ Church, Oxford, married Mary Gray from Chillingham. Although, in common with many of their contemporaries, not all the northern students graduated with a degree, while others gained several, the salient fact is that so many of them attended the two universities. Because, above and beyond constructing networks and acquiring practical expertise, beneficial for their obligations in later life, those young gentlemen who left the area to complete their education also gained a ‘sharpened sense of social identity’. And thus they inculcated the manners and conduct that marked them out from others in their locality. This could have resulted in their experiencing a diminished sense of identification with their place.87 Yet the fact that most of them returned to the north-eastern confines to serve their county, contract a marriage, or both, meant that their sense of place was just as likely to have been heightened. Many of the gentlemen progressed from university, or went directly, to one of the inns of court, where they acquired a training in common law, necessary to discharge their duties as landlords or on the magisterial bench. In consequence, the north-eastern counties were adequately provided for in respect of common lawyers. But, returning to Starkey’s prescription of ‘civil laws well administered’ as the cure for the ills of the body politic, the area was not distinctly disadvantaged as regards that judicial elite, who practised civil law, either. A ‘collective biography’ of the two hundred civil lawyers in England between 1603 and 1642 reveals that, out of 146 holding legal positions in the dioceses and counties, there was one each in Durham and Northumberland: Clement Colmore and Sir George Riddell. This figure was not outstanding

85 Cambridge University Archives: v. c. Ct. II. fo. 1Aff. Cited in Records of early English drama, Cambridge, ed. Alan H. Nelson, London 1989, 464, and see also 774–5. 86 Alumni Oxon, 171, 1165. 87 Bryson, From courtesy to civility, 149; Baker, ‘Some terrae incognitae’, 19.

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when measured against the other fifty-three counties, but it was respectable, especially when population ratios are taken into consideration. Perhaps more revealingly, each county was also the place of origin of a notable civil lawyer: George Riddell, from Newcastle, and Christopher Wyvell, from Walworth (who went on to become chancellor of Lincoln diocese). Again, this was lower than the average. However, it matched the counties of Bedfordshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire; and it was better than Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire, Rutland, Surrey and Westmorland, which furnished none at all.88 Lady Arbella need not have worried. At the practical level, it would seem that the elites of the north-eastern corner of England were the equals of their peers elsewhere. Notwithstanding the predisposition of those from the south-eastern parts of the realm to despise their northern counterparts, such prejudices were reciprocal. And, although recent historians have played down the so-called court/country divide, there were tensions and mutual suspicions between the localities and the capital, throughout England and in Wales. The prolific correspondence of the Wynn family, from Gwydir, perfectly illustrates the stressful relationship between the conservative, yet inquisitive, Sir John, and his sons in London.89 On the one hand, Sir John was highly critical of the excesses and corruption of the capital, and on the other, very anxious to benefit from links with the city and eager for information. Unfortunately, surviving personal letters from inhabitants of the north-eastern corner of England are extremely rare. However, one collection provides a glimpse of the relationship between London and Northumberland. Sir Robert Delaval, writing to his son Ralph, from London, in the summer of 1600, excused his tarrying there, which was on account of his ill health. He was acutely aware that his remaining in town might lay him open to reproach from his neighbours, for he observed that ‘I wold be right sory that the imaginations of the wicked shold prove trewe of me for stainge heare in theis parts so long’. At the same time, the capital did exercise a fascination for those who remained in the localities. Some years later, the same Ralph received a letter from his brother Francis, who was lodging in the Tiltyard at Whitehall, recounting court news at some length.90 In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the relationship between Northumberland and London was as contradictory as any other connection. Most contradictory of all, however, was the paradox underpinning impressions of the north-eastern reaches of the realm. The deliberately manufactured accounts of its distress, and, especially, its particularity as a border region, were negated by the fact of the union of the crowns. And so its civilisation always

88

Brian P. Levack, The civil lawyers in England, 1603–1641, Oxford 1973, 23, 37–8, 219–20, 265, 281–2. 89 Calendar of Wynn (of Gwydir) papers 1515–1690 in the National Library of Wales and elsewhere, Aberystwyth 1926. 90 NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE/5/14, 1 DE/5/16, 1 DE/5/35. 114

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had to be just beyond the horizon. The bishop of Durham wrote enthusiastically to Salisbury, at the very end of 1607, that the measures taken in the area meant ‘I doubt not but it will in short time civilize us to be as orderly and obedient as any other part of the kingdom’.91 Once the north-eastern parts were tamed they might also be deemed prosperous enough to contribute to the levies to which the rest of the country was subject. The fiscal immunity of Durham was already being relaxed in the 1590s, when collectors for privy seal loans had been nominated for county Durham in 1590, and again in 1598. It was expedient, therefore, for Northumberland to continue labouring its deleterious state. Hence, the gentlemen of Northumberland had concluded their letter explaining their inability to contribute to the 1604 privy seal loan by predicting that ‘when yt shall please god to better our estates, wee will be readye to offer and yeald unto his matie, the uttermost of our powers’.92 In the short term, their arguments seem to have prevailed. None of their names appeared on the registers of receipt for the 1604 loan and they were not subject to the subsidy of 1606.93 However, by January 1609 it was considered that their estate had indeed been bettered, for Sir Ralph Delaval, the sheriff, was instructed to draw up a list of freeholders with a view to making a contribution to a forthcoming loan. In March, he had to order the bailiffs of Glendale, Morpeth and Castle wards to distrain the lands of persons who owed money to the crown.94 In 1611, a list of persons and sums fit for a loan to the king included names from Northumberland (as well as Westmorland and Cumberland) and Newcastle. Three years later, when the privy council appealed to the counties and towns for money and plate to compensate for the supply lost in the recent ‘addled’ parliament, both counties Durham and Northumberland were approached, and Durham, Newcastle and Berwick were included amongst the prospective cities, towns and boroughs. The bishop of Durham, and then the dean, were invited to make a voluntary gift to the king, should he be required to engage in an ‘auxilarie warre’ to recover the palatinate, in 1620. And two years after that, the sheriffs, justices of the peace, mayors, and other officers of the counties and towns of the North East were asked for the names of those willing to make a voluntary contribution for the same purpose.95 For financial reasons, the negative reputation of the north-eastern confines of the country had been well and truly extinguished by 1625,96 as the whole area was considered a fully functioning part of the realm and participant in its affairs.

91

HMC, Salisbury, xix, 377 (my italics). SP 14/9A/230. 93 E 401/2584–5; 3 Jac I, c26, Statutes of the realm, iv, ii, 1124–5. 94 NRO (Gosforth) 1DE7/18 and 1DE7/20–2. 95 1 Elizabeth, 21, xxvii; APC, 1590–1591, 187; APC, 1597–1598, 558–9; SP14/67/45; APC, 1613–1614, 491–6; APC, 1619–1621, 291–3; APC, 1621–1623, 176–8. 96 A further quarter of a century later, Gray included tales of border feuding in his history of Newcastle almost in terms of a romanticised, distant past. Gray’s Chorographia; and see Chapter 7, below. 92

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One final point needs to be made. The negative terms in which the northeastern counties of England were portrayed throughout late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries concerned the far north and west of Northumberland and the western portion of Durham. It is significant that Sir Ralph Delaval had not required the bailiffs of either Coquetdale or Tynedale wards to pursue persons owing money to the crown in 1609: the assumption being that there were no freeholders of sufficient substance in the two western wards to have been assessed for contributing to the loan. In terms of the area’s relative civility, the demarcation closely followed the lines of the North’s physical landscape, which extended into its western parts and across the frontier into Scotland.97 It did not conform to the administrative and political boundaries which had determined the bureaucratic shape and organisation of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. Yet those boundaries were also created by socioeconomic factors, with those on its farthest margins most directly affected by variables such as weather conditions, internal politics and international diplomacy. At the same time, the contrast between Newcastle and its hinterland regarding their relative sophistication added another ingredient into the mix that was the early modern North East of England.

97 See, for example, Brian K. Roberts, Landscapes of settlement, prehistory in the present, London 1996, 58, fig. 3.8: ‘Landscapes and territories’. Both the physical regions and types of landscape bisect the north-eastern parts of England, north to south, and extend into the north-western parts and into Scotland.

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Religious identities As part of the truism that the North of England was uncivilised, primitive and retarded, it was held that nowhere was this more apparent than in its religious character, which was marked by its persistent adherence to Roman Catholicism in the face of the Protestant reformations of the sixteenth century.1 But this is to adopt a rigid, binary interpretation of the religious complexion of England in the early modern period. For it has been convincingly argued that it is misleading to see the English Reformation as a ‘struggle between two tightly consolidated blocs . . . facing each other across a deserted religious no-man’sland’. Nor was it a ‘coherent battle between two incommensurate world views’, for the majority neither wholly embraced nor wholly accepted it.2 The later years of the sixteenth century saw the English church facing an internal battle between Protestant conformists and a spectrum of the discontented, the most extreme of whom were Presbyterians, while tensions were also developing among English Catholics. This was as applicable to England’s north-eastern parts as to elsewhere in the kingdom. For instance, an appraisal of the ‘martyr’, Margaret Clitherow, executed in an exceptionally gruesome manner in March 1586 for creating a priests’ house and a Catholic school, concluded that the affair exposed deep divisions within the Catholic community of York.3 In particular, it demonstrated the rift between recusants and church papists, and between radical and moderate Catholics, who regarded her apparent determination to achieve martyrdom, and failure to exploit loopholes offered to her by the judge, as damaging to Catholics in general. Similarly, it is increasingly difficult to trace a single Catholic community, despite Diarmaid MacCulloch being as convinced in 2001 as he had been in 1990 that the tendency of Catholic families to marry into other Catholic families made the community

1

John Guy estimated that mid-Tudor Protestantism still embraced less than five per cent of the population in the North, in his The Tudors: a very short introduction, Oxford 2000, 60. 2 Michael C. Questier, Conversion, politics and religion in England, 1580-1625, Cambridge 1996, 9; Ethan H. Shagan, Popular politics and the English reformation, Cambridge 2003, 7; and see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation. Europe’s house divided, 1490–1700, London 2003, 382–93. 3 Peter Lake and Michael C. Questier, ‘Margeret Clitherow, catholic conformity, martyrology and the politics of religious change in Elizabethan England’, P&P, cvxxxv (2004), 43–90. 117

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‘ever more identifiable’.4 It could be argued that this might have been especially so after the introduction of recusancy legislation from 1572. For conditions were created to illustrate Phythian-Adams’s point that, ‘shared susceptibility to the same outside influences’ was a distinguishable cultural trait,5 which, in turn, was also a crucial element in shaping identity. But how accurate are these premises? And how can they be tested? It is twenty years since Margaret Spufford concluded that weighing or counting seventeenth-century souls was as futile a procedure as weighing poetry or tragedy had been for Aristophanes almost two and a half millennia ago;6 and such a conclusion remains valid. Where an exercise of that kind could be of use is in computing evidence for notions of religious identity by investigating those who were prepared to ‘stand up and be counted’ in respect of their confessional stance. In so doing, it might be possible to get some impression of that particular identity in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century north-eastern parts of England. At the same time, the early modern period was one in which a variety of religious identities were coalescing and crystallising across the full religious spectrum, and were further refined and developed in relation to changing religious and political contexts.

Catholic identities The most notable occasion upon which those in the north-eastern corner of England ‘stood up to be counted’ was during the northern rising of 1569. This was part of a wider scheme to replace the English Queen Elizabeth with her cousin, Mary, queen of Scotland. But, according to the proclamation issued by the earls of Westmorland and Northumberland rallying support for their cause, it was also a response to the way in which the Tudors had ‘new set up nobles’ who ‘go about to overthrow and put down the ancient nobility of this realm’.7 The so-called ‘rising of the northern earls’ (rather than any of the more

4 John Bossy, The English Catholic community, 1570–1850, London 1975, 6; J.A. Hilton, ‘Catholicism in Elizabethan Northumberland’, NH, xiii (1977), 58, and ‘Catholicism in Elizabethan Durham’, NH, xiv (1977), 4; Diarmaid MacCulloch, The later Reformation in England, 1547–1603, 2nd edn, Basingstoke 2001, 125. For the course of Catholic historiography in the quarter-century since Bossy’s English Catholic community, see Christopher Haigh, ‘Catholicism in early modern England: Bossy and beyond’, HJ, xlv (2002), 481–93. 5 Phythian-Adams, ‘Introduction; an agenda for English local history’, in Phythian-Adams, Societies, cultures and kinship, 9. 6 Margaret Spufford, ‘Can we count the “godly” and the “conformable” in the seventeenth century?’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, xxxvi (1985), 428–38. 7 The proclamation, issued from Darlington on 16 December 1569, is at BL, MS Harleian, 6990, fo. 44, and printed in Anthony Fletcher and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor rebellions, 4th edn, London 1997, 150.

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traditional names, such as the ‘northern rising’ or ‘the rebellion of 1569’) has come to be regarded as a personalised conflict, which was centred upon power struggles within the Tudor elite. In its northern context, it was ‘basically the result of a regional crisis rather than a national one’.8 Above all, it has been argued that the rebellion’s supporters, drawn from a dark and backward corner of the realm, were merely responding to the call of their feudal lords. Accordingly, its failure thereafter was considered in similar terms, in so far as it ‘proved that northern feudalism . . . could no longer rival Tudor centralisation’. Historians attached little significance to the events of 1569 as an expression of religious fervour. This was despite the fact that the earls’ proclamation made plain that ‘the settinge forthe of his trewe and Catholicke religion’ was the principal motive for joining them in rebellion, and that the earls and their followers’ opening action was to destroy all evidence of Protestantism in Durham cathedral and to celebrate a Catholic mass there.9 Currently, however, the northern rising is being reassessed – based on conclusions drawn from contemporary perceptions, and, more revealingly, on the participants’ behaviour – resulting in the restoration of its popular religious character as the most important motivating factor for recruits.10 And, with only twenty per cent of the known rebels having tenurial links with the earls, feudal duty has been dismissed as unlikely to have been the driving force behind the rising.11 The lord president of the Council of the North, the earl of Sussex, was in little doubt that support for the rising was because they ‘like so well their cause of religion’. While Sir Ralph Sadler asserted that ‘there be not in all this country ten gentlemen that do favour and allowe of her majesties proceedings in the cause of religion’ and dismissed ‘the comen people’ as ‘altogether blynded with tholde popishe doctrine’. He went on to say that even those recruited to fight for the queen, ‘though their persons be here with us, I assure you their hearts for the most part be with the rebels’.12 Certainly, the

8

Marcombe, ‘“A rude and heady people” ’, 119 (his italics). The 1975 reprint of the venture’s august nineteenth-century history dealt with the confusing nomenclature by entitling it, The rising in the north. The 1569 rebellion. Being a reprint of the memorials of the rebellion of the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland edited by Sir Cuthbert Sharp, 1840, Durham 1975. 9 These interpretations have a very long history. See, in particular, Cuthbert Sharp, Memorials of the rebellion of 1569, London 1841; R.R. Reid, ‘The rebellion of the earls, 1569’, TRHS, 2nd ser., 20 (1906); James, Family, lineage and civil society; Wallace MacCaffrey, The shaping of the Elizabethan regime, Princeton 1986; Fletcher and MacCulloch, Tudor rebellions. 10 K.J. Kesselring, ‘“A cold pye for the papists”: constructing and containing the northern rising of 1569’, Journal of British Studies, xliii (2004), 417–43. 11 Alison Wall, Power and protest in England, 1525–1640, London 2000; Susan Taylor, The crown and the north of England, 1559–70: a study of the rebellion of the northern earls, 1569–70, and its causes, Manchester 1981. 12 SP 15/15/30; Sadler papers, ii, 53–4. 119

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men in arms declared their common aims by marching under banners that depicted the ‘five wounds of Christ’ and wearing red crosses, thereby clearly defining the religious nature of their enterprise. The most potent symbol of Catholicism in the diocese of Durham, the banner of St Cuthbert, behind which the Durham supporters had marched in the Pilgrimage of Grace, was no longer available to the rebels. For Katherine Whittingham, wife of the dean of Durham and sister-in-law of John Calvin, had been responsible for the destruction of the banner. It was later reported that, ‘being a Freanche woman . . . [she] did most injurously burne and consume the same in hir fire, in the notable contempt and disgrace of all anncyent and goodly reliques’.13 Clearly, the iniquity of the deed was compounded by her foreignness. For, at a stroke, this French Calvinist had deprived the people of Durham of their saint and their past.14 It could even be argued that her incendiary action was a more effective tool in revitalising Catholicism in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom than the armies of Jesuit and seminary priests dispatched from the continent in the 1570s and 1580s. Notwithstanding the lost banner of St Cuthbert, there was abundant evidence of efforts to restore the fabric of the Catholic church and revive its rites and practices, both during the rising and in its immediate aftermath. According to the many depositions taken after the rebellion, there were masses and anthems sung in Durham cathedral, as well as processions ‘after the crosse’, in the traditional manner.15 These attracted widespread participation, as more than one deponent alluded to the ‘multitudes’ of people who flocked to observe revived services in the cathedral, which, they complained, made it difficult to see or hear the proceedings. The churches of St Nicholas, St Giles, St Oswald and St Margaret, in Durham, also witnessed the revival of popish practices, as did those in Brancepeth, St Helen Aukland, Long Newton, Chester le Street, Monkwearmouth, Heighington, Whitworth and Lanchester. At Brancepeth a baby was christened according to the old rites, and at St Helen Aukland a woman was ‘churched’. Altar stones were recovered from their hiding places, such as the two for the cathedral which were hidden ‘one on Mr Swyfft [prebendary of the first stall] backsyd and the other . . . in the centry [cemetry] garth under moch mettal [earth or rubble]’; while the ‘hallywater fatts’ reappeared from unknown whereabouts. Altars and holy water stones were also restored to churches at Pittington, Aukland St Andrew, Sedgefield,

13 M.A.E. Green, ‘Life of Mr William Whittingham’ (Camden Miscellany vi, 1871); A description of all the ancient monuments, rites and customes belonging or beinge within the monastical church of Durham before the suppression; written in 1593, ed. J.T. Fowler (SS, 1842), 23. 14 This is dealt with more fully in Chapter 7. 15 These are in PGL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, and printed in Depositions and other ecclesiastical proceedings from the courts of Durham, ed. J. Raine (SS, 1845), 136–205.

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Long Newton and Stockton. At the same time, communion tables were enthusiastically destroyed and Protestant books publicly burned.16 Unfortunately, it is impossible to be certain about the extent of that activity, especially in north Yorkshire. For, although the rising attracted support from throughout north Yorkshire and Durham – and was particularly concentrated in the Tees valley – the consistory court records for Yorkshire are not as complete as those for Durham. However, levels of participation can be measured by examining recruitment patterns, which, in turn, can be extrapolated from the lists of pardons that were granted after the suppression of the rising. 17 The queen had instructed the commissioners appointed to compound with the rebels to the effect that, where the parties were too poor to pay the fees for separate pardons, up to ten names could be entered on a single pardon. These might be expected to reflect local interest groupings within the wider organisation of the rising, and, on the whole, they did. There are ‘batches’ of group pardons solely for men from individual towns or from concentrated areas. These group pardons were almost exclusively for men from either Yorkshire or Durham, with only one containing the names of men from both counties (together with a gentleman from Newcastle on Tyne). Administrative boundaries, albeit for bureaucratic purposes, clearly overrode any other consideration. Nevertheless, out of almost 450 group pardons, only one contained the names of men from Northumberland. This suggests that, in respect of ideological considerations, shared northern identity was between men from Yorkshire and Durham, rather than from Northumberland and Durham. At a practical level, too, securing the borders against any opportunist invasion by the Scots was likely to have been uppermost in the commons of Northumberland’s minds. In this instance, moreover, the mutual experience of Yorkshire and Durham reflects the four broad divisions Hoyle makes within the North, one of which conjoins those two counties.18 The contrast between the two north-eastern counties was given further expression by bishop Richard Barnes soon after his arrival in Durham in 1577. In sharp contrast to the general view of Northumberland, he wrote to Burghley commending the obedience of the people of Northumberland, which he compared with ‘those stubborn, churlish people of the county of Durham and their neighbours of Richmondshire . . .’.19 The far North’s involvement in the northern rising had been less concerned with its ideological dimension than with its aftermath. Not least were the widespread expressions of dismay at the decision taken by 16

PGL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, fos 170, 177–9, 180, 182–3, 187, 190, 196, 200, 203. Calendar of the patent rolls, Elizabeth 1, London 1966, v, 81n. The pardons are nos. 585–1019, especially nos. 81–114. 18 R.W. Hoyle, The pilgrimage of Grace and the politics of the 1530s, Oxford 2001, 29–31. The other three were: Lancashire and Westmorland; the ‘deep border’, or Cumberland and Northumberland; and the ‘narrow border’, or militarised frontier, or ‘marches’. 19 The injunctions and other ecclesiastical proceedings of Richard Barnes, bishop of Durham, 1575–87, ed. J. Raine (SS, 1850), x. 17

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the Scottish regent, the earl of Moray, to return the earl of Northumberland from Scotland to face English justice. The earl of Sussex reported to the privy council that, although he approved of the move, ‘it was against [the Scottish lords’] custom’, while Lord Hunsdon warned that ‘most of the nobility think it a great reproach to the country to deliver any banished man to the slaughter, accounting it a liberty to all nations to succour banished men’. Sir John Forster concurred, as did the Scottish nobility, who ‘howled with rage’ at Moray’s action.20 For the chief consideration for the elites in Northumberland and their Scottish counterparts was protecting their particular border codes and traditions, as well as the border itself. When the authorities had come to deal with the northern rising, the fact that initially they ignored the role of religion may have contributed to the later impression that it was of little import. However, this failure to acknowledge the events of 1569 as (at least in part) a popular religious rising, and, instead, regard it in terms of a challenge to the integrity of the realm, has since been re-interpreted. In particular, the silence about religion was indicative of the regime’s insecurity in the face of a Catholic menace. For example, the queen’s first proclamation regarding the rebellion assiduously ignored the religious element.21 Once that threat was successfully countered, however, the charge of ‘popery’ was added to that of ‘treachery’, as ‘papist’ and traitor’ became interchangeable in the rhetoric of the polemicists. Thereafter was forged ‘a virulent anti-Catholic Protestant identity for the English that was to endure and shape responses to future events’.22 Even after their defeat, those northern rebels that escaped punishment, and absconded across the border into Scotland, took on an international significance.23 For they became briefly involved in the civil wars between the forces of the ‘exiled’ Catholic Queen Mary and the Protestant supporters of her son, which ultimately justified Elizabeth’s intervention in Scotland’s affairs. The surprising complicity of so many Scots in this interference was made possible, in part, by ‘the emergence of a newer “British” identity; an identity premised on a shared Protestantism in the face of a Catholic foe’.24 This was considerably earlier than Elizabeth’s deliberate efforts to whip up anti-Catholic sentiments in the face of the Spanish threat in the 1580s. 20 SP 59/16/122, SP 59/16/124; Sadler papers, ii, 118–19. Forster nevertheless took the greatest delight in escorting the disgraced earl to his execution. See Meikle, ‘A godly rogue’. 21 See K.J. Kesselring, ‘The “British” context of England’s 1569 rebellion’, paper given at the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies, Berkeley, March 2004. I am grateful to Dr Kesselring for allowing me to use this unpublished paper; Tudor royal proclamations, ii, no. 567. 22 Kesselring, ‘The “British” context’; Peter Lake, ‘Anti-popery: the structure of a prejudice’, in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds), Conflict in early Stuart England, Harlow 1989. 23 This has been passed over with little or no comment in the Scottish historiography, except for Ronald Pollitt, ‘The defeat of the northern rising and the shaping of AngloScottish relations’, Scottish Historical Review, lxiv (1988), 1–21. 24 Kesselring, ‘The “British” context’.

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One of the most striking aspects of the northern rising was the fact that it attracted so little support from even the Catholic gentry, who were unwilling to jeopardise their political standing in the local community.25 Not only was this a clear example of the diversity of Catholic opinion in the north-eastern parts of the kingdom, it was also an example of the way in which the episode was more multi-faceted than a simple desire to return to the jurisdiction of Rome. At the very end of the century that issue emerged again with the ‘archpriest controversy’, which developed into the ‘appellants controversy’, both of which were labyrinthine in their complexity.26 At one level the ‘archpriest controversy’ concerned the pope’s appointment of an archpriest, George Blackwell, in 1598, as a successor to Cardinal Allen (who had died in 1594). But, at a much more fundamental level, the controversy revolved around the vexed question of where a Catholic’s loyalties lay: with the pope or with their monarch. The repercussions of the controversies continued to reverberate in the next reign, especially throughout the ensuing upheavals in the aftermath of the gunpowder plot. When parliament eventually met, in January 1606, it debated and then passed an act ‘to prevent and avoid dangers which may grow by popish Recusants’, which included an oath of allegiance, drawn up by the king himself, to be taken by suspected recusants.27 As well as swearing ‘that our sovereign lord King James is lawful and rightful king of this realm’ they also had to testify that the pope did not have ‘any power or authority to depose the King’ nor could he ‘discharge any of his subjects of their allegiance and obedience to His Majesty’. Reaction to the oath was to lacerate the Catholics as it ‘divided not just loyalist clergy from outspoken clerical supporters of the papal deposing power, but also clerical loyalists among themselves; it broke up the political unity of all the major clerical groupings; it divided not just cleric from cleric but also clerics from laity’.28 The northeastern Catholics were similarly riven. Involved in the subsequent controversy, after 1606, were the recently returned Benedictine monks, who were ranged against the archpriest, now George Birkhead, as well as the Jesuits and most of the secular clergy, who had respected the pope’s instructions forbidding them to take the oath. When the Benedictine monks broke ranks and underwrote the government’s demands regarding the oath, in 1611, Roger Widdrington was found to be involved in the controversy, in name if not in fact, because the most high-profile defender of the oath was one of those monks, father Roland Preston, writing under the

25

James, Family, lineage and civil society, 51 and passim. For a straightforward account of the controversies, and subsequent historiography, see David Lunn, The English Benedictines, 1540–1688, London 1980, 11–14. 27 3 James I, c.4. 28 M.C. Questier, ‘Loyalty, religion and state power in early modern England: English Romanism and the Jacobean oath of allegiance’, HJ, xl (1997), 317. 26

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name of his kinsman, Roger Widdrington.29 The matter was already the cause of conflict between the secular priests and the Benedictines in the North, not least because much of the northern aristocracy and gentry (including the Widdringtons) firmly supported taking the oath. This was largely because they had been sympathetic to Mary, Queen of Scots, and, by extension, were fiercely loyal to her son, King James. Paradoxically, this contradicts the view that the North, and especially the Catholic element in the North, was uniformly and comprehensively untrustworthy, disobedient and dangerous. The Catholic North was as divided over this issue as were their coreligionists throughout the kingdom, and the ‘quarrell in the north’ came to the attention of George Birkhead. He represented the alternative view, writing under the alias of his kinsman, another Catholic, George Salvin, of Croxdale in county Durham.30 In particular, Birkhead warned that the Apologia Cardinalis Bellarmini Iure Principum, written by ‘Roger Widdrington’ in retaliation to Cardinal Bellarmine’s opposition to both the oath and the king’s Apologie, to explain and defend the oath, threatened to ‘sturre up the coales againe’. 31 Regarding the authorship of the book he opined that ‘Witherington of himself is knowen to be unable to write so learnedly’. Thus was confirmed the southern perception of the northern gentry in general, and of Widdrington, whose family were long associated with the more disorderly parts of Northumberland, in particular, as a ‘mere roughneck law-enforcement officer of the border badlands’.32 In fact, he was an associate of Lord William Howard of Naworth, becoming his estate agent after 1614, and two of his nieces married sons of Lord William.33 Howard moved in the first circles of scholarship, his library attracting the commendation of Dugdale and Camden, and his daughter marrying Cotton’s eldest son. It is inconceivable that his ‘cultivated master’ did not influence Widdrington to some degree. Indeed, his uncle, Sir Henry

29 See Newsletters from the archpresbyterate of George Birkhed, ed. Michael Questier, (Camden 5th ser., xii, 1998), 11. To add to the confusion, Preston’s religious name was Thomas. For the relationship between Widdrington and Preston, see Ann M.C. Forster, ‘The real Roger Widdrington’, Recusant History, xi (1971–2). 30 Birkhead’s mother was Isabel, sister of the ‘rebel’, Gerard Salvin. 31 Archives of the archdiocese of Westminster, A series (hereafter, AAW A), x, no. 76, 201–2, cited in Questier, Newsletters from George Birkhed. 32 AAW A, x, no. 147, 413–16; Anthony Goodman, ‘Border warfare and Hexhamshire in the later middle ages’, Hexham Historian, xiii (2003), 50; Lunn, English Benedictines, 41. 33 See Howard S. Reinmuth, ‘Lord William Howard (1563–1640) and his Catholic associations’, Recusant History, xii (1973), 226–34. Lord William’s grandson, and eventual heir, married a daughter of William, 4th Lord Eure, the recusant eldest son of Ralph Eure. Another of Lord William’s sons married Margaret, daughter of Ralph Eure’s recusant brother, Sir William of Bradley, and Dame Katherine Bowes, the only known recusant of that family. While another daughter, Mary, married the grandson of the earl of Worcester. Thus, the sprawling family relationships embraced Catholics and Protestants at every level of influential society.

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Widdrington, left him a lump sum of one hundred pounds, and twenty pounds a year, in his will, ‘for the better mantenance of his studie and librarye’.34 Widdrington was also familiar with the continent, having forged links when he was in exile from 1607 to 1611, following his participation in his brother’s efforts regarding legislation against the ‘hostile laws’ in the parliament of 1607. His return to Northumberland may have been precipitated by a desire to be involved in writing the book that bore his name. This may not have extended any further than his supplying Preston with books from Lord William Howard’s library, but it placed him close to the centre of a major ideological disputation, in which the king himself had been engaged. Thereafter, he used his continental connections to carry copies of Preston’s books for wider dissemination.35 Above all, Roger Widdrington was much more than simply a member of the conservative or reactionary northern Catholic community. He moved comfortably across the North of England, and at Westminster, as well as on the continent, where he furthered the interests of those who were in accord with him regarding political and ideological principles. Neither did he represent a homogenous northern Catholic position. For his opponents regarding the oath of allegiance were headed by the archpriest George Birkhead, who was related to the Salvins and the Birkheads of Durham, as well as the ultraProtestant Whittinghams, with their continental Calvinist connections. Far from there being an ‘average Catholic’ as part of a ‘distinct group’, which was ‘ever more identifiable’, as perceived by Bossy, Hilton and MacCulloch, the Catholics were very diverse. They ranged from recusants, church-papists, and apostates to and from Catholicism, to exiles on the continent and yet further sub-categorisations.36 It must be concluded that ‘a Catholic identity’ in the north-eastern corner of England at the beginning of the seventeenth century was similarly very elusive.

Protestant identities By the same token, it had been difficult to create a Protestant identity, since ‘all the imported theological wares on offer’, since the 1520s, merely created

34 Lunn, English Benedictines, 41. He makes the point that scepticism about Widdrington’s literary abilities may well have been typical of clerical belief that the laity were, by their very nature, illiterate; Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 225–6. 35 Lunn, English Benedictines, 41. 36 See, for instance, Alexandra Walsham, Church papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern England, London 1993; Michael Questier, Conversion, politics and religion in England, 1580–1625, Cambridge 1996; Alison Shell, Catholicism, controversy and the English literary imagination, 1558–1660, Cambridge 1999. It is telling that many Catholics turned up to hear Toby Matthew’s first sermon as dean, on account of his reputation as a preacher. See Gee, ‘A sixteenth century journey’, 114.

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confusion.37 Thereafter, and despite Elizabethan efforts to achieve a Protestant consensus, by the second half of the sixteenth century, differences remained, only they were drawn more starkly. Accordingly, alongside the so-called ‘prayer book Protestants’, who were reasonably content with the English church as it had been ‘settled’ in 1559 by the acts of supremacy and uniformity, there were also varieties of dissenters. These ranged from separatist and sectarian groups, or ‘schismatics’, to members of the church desiring further reformation, the most discernible of which were represented by a younger generation of clergy, imbued with the reforming zeal developed in Geneva, and known as Puritans. But, almost from the beginning, ‘Puritan’ was a loose and indiscriminate term of abuse, so that, until 1640, few were prepared openly to be associated with the notion. At the same time, Puritanism itself was never really a coherent or readily identifiable movement, and for much of its history was ‘an oppositional, agitatory movement, frequently in conflict with the secular and ecclesiastical authorities or with those many sections of local society which did not share its ideals’.38 Ultimately, the Puritans were marginalised after the publication of the ‘marprelate tracts’ – a series of ‘outrageously humorous attacks’ on the leading conformist clergy – in 1588, which coincided with the death of a number of their leading secular supporters at court. Several prominent Puritans were imprisoned in 1591 and some separatists were executed in 1593.39 Attempts to enforce religious uniformity were less stringent in the North of England than in the South, however. Indeed, the Puritans were even regarded as allies in the fight against (Roman Catholic) conservatism in the North. James Pilkington had become bishop of Durham in 1561. For a short time a member of the Scottish radical John Knox’s congregation at Geneva, he had refused the bishopric of Winchester because he could not accept the terms offered by Elizabeth’s new archbishop of Canterbury, the moderate Matthew Parker.40 He was supported by Dean Whittingham, who was the ‘single potential leader’ of the radical Protestant cause in England. Whittingham’s credentials were excellent: he had translated the Geneva Bible while there with his brotherin-law, John Calvin; the ‘Puritan earl’ of Huntingdon was ‘good to him’; and Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, secured the position of dean of Durham for him, also in 1561.41 Thereafter, for fifty years following the rising of the northern earls, Pilkington, and subsequent bishops of Durham, sought to secure able Protestant preachers for unattractive, remote and poorly endowed livings, whatever their churchmanship.42 This erosion of the differences between 37

MacCulloch, The later Reformation, 128. Christopher Durston and Jaqueline Eales, ‘Introduction: the Puritan ethos, 1560–1700’, in The culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700, Basingstoke 1996, especially 3–4. 39 See MacCulloch, The later Reformation, 47–51. 40 Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan movement, London 1967, 61, 48–9. 41 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan movement, 33, 45, 52. 42 Jane Freeman, ‘The distribution and use of ecclesiastical patronage in the diocese of Durham, 1558–1640’, in Marcombe, Last principality, 171–2. 38

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Puritans and conformist Protestants in the diocese of Durham may have lent the area a certain singularity, making it atypical. However, for similar reasons, the authorities were prepared to tolerate Puritans in the diocese of Chester,43 another example of the whole of the North presenting a slightly different religious complexion from the rest of the kingdom. Newcastle upon Tyne seems to have been more certain about its disposition. In 1564, all the bishops reported to the privy council about the religious convictions of those in their respective dioceses, in response to inquiries designed to gauge the extent of opposition to the Elizabethan religious settlement. Newcastle was unique in being described as less hostile to the government than were the counties.44 That the area’s principal urban centre emerged as unusually conventional (doctrinally), in comparison to its hinterland, gives the region a certain distinction, in one respect at least. Its governors were reported to be ‘obedient to the lawes and kepe the towne so with all their diligens’, only their vast income threatening to pervert them from being ‘one of the best townes on this side the trent’.45 But this, of course, was the opinion of James Pilkington, associate of John Knox. Newcastle’s Puritan associations had begun with Knox, who had been in Newcastle in the early 1550s, and were continued when, in 1568, the Puritan John Macbray was instituted to the town’s principal church of St Nicholas, where he remained until his death in 1584. This coincided with the arrival of Scottish exiles escaping from the consequences of the ‘black acts’, which had restored episcopacy to the Scottish kirk.46 Three of these exiles established a congregation on the Genevan model, thus further energising the radical Protestants of Newcastle. In turn, the prominent Puritan, John Udall, was ‘called’ north to minister to the Puritans of Newcastle in 1587, probably by the earl of Huntingdon, president of the Council of the North.47 Huntingdon’s support did not protect Udall when his contribution to the ‘marprelate tracts’ – the Demonstration of discipline – resulted in his being tried for his life at the Surrey assizes in 1590. Although the sentence of death was commuted to exile in 1591, he died the following year.48 Thus, the North East had a Puritan 43

R.C. Richardson, Puritanism in north-west England. A regional study of the diocese of Chester to 1642, Manchester 1972, 17. 44 ’A collection of original letters from the bishops to the privy council, 1564, with returns of the justices of the peace and others within their respective dioceses, classified according to their religious convictions’, ed. Mary Bateson, (Camden Miscellany, ix, 1895), iv, 65–7. This coincided with the ‘vestarian controversy’ and was therefore indicative of central concerns regarding the extent of Puritanism. 45 Bateson, ‘Bishops to the privy council’, 66. 46 See Gordon Donaldson, ‘Scottish Presbyterian exiles in England, 1584–8’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, xiv (1960–2), 67–80. Years later, another exile from Scotland, James Melville, was to exert a marked influence on Berwick, in 1606–14. He was much revered by the local people according to a plaque on the church wall. See his Autobiography and Diary, Wodrow Society, 1842. 47 Claire Cross, ‘Noble patronage in the Elizabethan church’, HJ, iii (1960), 12. 48 Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan movement, 407. 127

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victim to join the growing number of Roman Catholic martyrs. The episode also reinforced Puritanism in the north-eastern confines of England as part of an international, radical Protestant identity, over and above the existence of a national Puritan identity, with Scottish exiles providing impetus to a movement that had its origins on the continent. Nevertheless, the kind of clerical radicalism initiated by Pilkington ‘remained a committed island in a sea of apathy’, even after the appointment of Huntingdon to the presidency of the Council of the North.49 It has been suggested that, in order to maintain their own identity, as well as the conviction and continuity of their devotional life, creating a closely-knit organisation of sympathisers was crucial for Puritans. This was achieved, in part, by establishing conventicles, or household gatherings for prayer and Bible reading. One of the clearest arguments for there being a less polarised dichotomy between Puritans and conformist Protestants in the North was that conventicles were correspondingly rarer there than in the South. For instance, whereas they were known to be taking place in Essex from the 1570s, the earliest known example in the diocese of Chester was not until 1605. Unfortunately, the records do not exist for Durham. Years later, however, Thomas Jackson, the incumbent of St Nicholas in Newcastle, observed that ‘at my first entrance upon my pastoral charge in the town of Newcastle’ (in the late 1620s) there were ‘some private conventicles in and about that town’. But he made it clear that another Puritan practice of ‘prophesying’, a public conference of the clergy, ‘came but lately into the northern parts (unless it were in the townes of Newcastle and Berwick, wherein Knox, Mackbray, and Udal had sown their tares)’. On the one hand, this appeared to be in marked contrast to the rest of the kingdom, where prophesyings, and other such gatherings, ‘expressed the reciprocity of town and countryside in early modern England’.50 On the other, the situation in the north-eastern corner of the realm seemed to reflect the tensions between urban centres and their hinterlands, which had reached the point, in the late sixteenth century, where towns were perceived as urban bastions of Puritan godliness battling against morally corrupt, popish hinterlands.51

49

Tillbrook, ‘Durham, 1558–1642’, 435. Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan movement, 379; Richardson, Puritanism in north west England, 86; Thomas Jackson, The works of Thomas Jackson, Oxford 1884, ix, 371, 551; Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England, 46–7. 51 David Underdown, ‘Regional cultures? Local variations in popular culture during the early modern period’, in Tim Harris (ed.), Popular culture in England c1500–1850, London 1995, 30. His comparison of popular culture across early modern England concluded that both urban and rural cultures served the same purpose. These tensions had antecedents in fifteenth-century Florence, where the urban elites regarded themselves as more demonstrably pious than the backward and primitive rural communities in the surrounding countryside. A study of Florentine wills has revealed that urban and rural preambles actually expressed similar sentiments. See S.K. Cohn, ‘Piety and religious practice in the rural dependencies of Renaissance Florence’, EHR, cxiv (1999), 1121–42. 50

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Yet the Newcastle Puritans had long been as much engaged with tackling Roman Catholicism in the town as the surrounding countryside. In the aftermath of the rising of the North, Hunsdon had warned the central authorities to look to Newcastle.52 Similarly, bishop Pilkington’s seemingly positive return to the council about the state of religion, in 1564, was tempered by his opinion that there were two factors ‘which hynder religion here muche’.53 The first was the preponderance of Scottish priests. The second was, the grete number of scholars borne here about nowe lieng at lovan (Louvain) without lycense, and sending in bokes and letters which cause many tymes evill rumors to be spredde and disquiet the peple. They be mayntened by the hospitals of the newcastell and the welthiest of that towne and this shire as is iudged and be their nere cousins.

Ten years later, Sir William Fleetwood, selected by Pilkington as his principal legal adviser, lamented to Lord Burghley that ‘[t]he towne of Newcastell are all Papistes, save Anderson, and yett he is so knitt in suche sorte with the Papistes that, Aiunt, aiit, negant, negat’.54 However, as this was a part of the efforts to resist the annexation of Gateshead by Newcastle, and the people of Gateshead were described as the antithesis of Newcastle, being ‘religeus, godly, and good Protestannes’, this was as much an example of economic considerations influencing religious evaluations as a dispassionate assessment of the situation.55 For, on the one hand, Newcastle was demonstrably combating Catholicism, it being the site for the execution of the seminary priests, Joseph Lampton, in 1592, and Edward Waterson, in 1594.56 On the other, the ungodly and unresponsive inhabitants of Newcastle were condemned, in 1600, as ‘famous for thy mocking and misusing of Christ’s messengers’, since ‘Knox, great Reformer of Scotland’, who preached there, and latterly ‘learned Udall, whose innocent blood cries yet from the ground’.57 In 1616, the archdeacon

52

SP 59/16/186. Bateson, ‘Bishops to the privy council’, 67. 54 SP 12/107/77. Cited in W.D.H. Longstaffe, ‘The attempt to annex Gateshead to Newcastle in 1575’, AA, ns ii (1858), 299. A more prosaic conjunction of economic and religious concerns was in a letter from William Morton, archdeacon of Durham and vicar of Newcastle, to Sir Ralph Winwood, secretary of state, in 1616. The fact that popery was flourishing in Newcastle was reported concurrently with fears that the river Tyne was in danger of blocking up. SP 14/88/235. 55 See above, Chapter 5. 56 A rather grisly account of the sums paid by the corporation to the executioner and the manufacturers of the instruments of execution is in Memoirs of the life of Mr Ambrose Barnes, late merchant and sometimes alderman of Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. W.D.H. Longstaffe (SS, 1867), 293, 295. 57 Memoirs of Ambrose Barnes, 299. This is from an extract accredited to ‘Fenwick’s Christ Ruling in the midst of his enemies, 1643’. Given that this was from an account published 53

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of Durham, William Morton (writing under the name of Zeth Bridges), reported that ‘popery flourishes’ in Newcastle, and he provided the names of nine Catholic ladies married to principal men of Newcastle and Gateshead. The recusant and harbourer of priests, Dorothy Lawson, who lived by the Tyne from 1616, was even buried according to Catholic rites at All Saints’ church, in the city, under the eyes of its civic dignitaries and a respectful crowd.58 It would seem that the description of Newcastle as, ‘a very populous town, with multitudes of men, and no small variety of opinions’, in the seventeenth century was as accurate as it had been in 1569. Then, it had been reported to Sadler that: ‘Of Sonday last the Protestants and Papests, withyn Newcastell, mayd a fray’, which was pacified by the expulsion of Richard Hodgson, ‘a rank Papest’.59 The Puritan faction in Newcastle continued to make its presence felt, albeit as ‘one of unconnected activity’, until the opposition of bishop Neile, in the 1620s, which gave the ‘movement . . . its real cohesion and organization’.60 Activity against Catholicism was undertaken simultaneously with confronting that other notorious enemy of the godly, sin. It had long been understood that only a partnership between magistrates and ministers could combat Catholicism as well as preventing or punishing sin. The bishop of Durham, Toby Matthew, has been acknowledged as having ‘made tangible that Protestant ideal of the harmonious relationship of godly bishop and magistrate in their mutual fight against Popery and profanity’.61 Later, Robert Jenison, a lecturer in Newcastle, addressed the respective roles of magistrates and ministers in creating a godly town. Using the analogy of the watchman at the city gate he explained that ‘this watching and waking here may be extended further . . . and must be made to belong to Magistrates’, but that, ‘from this care and watchfulness we must not exclude the minsters of God’.62 Jenison’s family was prominent in the government of Newcastle; his father, Ralph, had served as mayor and sheriff, and his uncle, William, as sheriff, mayor and member of parliament. This was despite the fact that William Jenison was described as ‘inclined inwardly to popery but one that hides it’,63 which is an

during the civil war, its propagandist nature was very likely to have been an important consideration. 58 SP 14/88/235; W. Palmes, Life of Mrs Dorothy Lawson of St Antony’s near Newcastle-uponTyne in Northumberland, ed. G.B. Richardson, Newcastle 1851, 52–4. 59 Biographical details of Thomas Jackson, ‘written by a late Fellow of Corpus Christi college’, in Works of Thomas Jackson, i, xlii; Sadler papers, ii, 64. 60 Howell, Newcastle and the Puritan revolution, 85. 61 Fincham, Prelate as pastor, 80. 62 Robert Jenison, The cities safetie or a Fruitful Treatise (and useful for these dangerous times): a treatise on Psalm 127.1, London 1630, 6–9; D.J. Lamburn, ‘“Digging and dunging”: some aspects of lay influence in the northern towns’, in Diana Wood (ed.), Life and thought in the northern church, c1100–c1700. Essays in honour of Claire Cross, Woodbridge 1999. 63 SP 14/88/235. 130

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example of circumspectly held religious views not being harmful to career advancement. Robert Jenison attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he was tutored by Samuel Ward, a moderate Puritan of Calvinistic views. He returned to Newcastle some time before 1620, as a lecturer, where he so impressed his congregation that they were ‘content willinglie to pay quarterlie those severall sumes . . . for his stypand’.64 It could be argued that Newcastle, in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, with its immigrant workforce, especially those from the notoriously lawless upland parts of the north-eastern counties, was in particular need of proselytising. Nevertheless, it took almost a century for Newcastle to transform itself from one of many northern towns with ‘not one faithful pastor’, to a ‘famous protestant preaching centre’.65 Even then, that did not mean the transformation was anywhere near complete. Given the lack of a clear or consistent Puritan identity in the north-eastern corner of the kingdom, it is not surprising that it was there that the so-called ‘Calvinist consensus’ first broke down. The bishop of Durham, from 1617, was the fifty-five-year-old Richard Neile, who has been described as one of the two thoroughly partisan patrons in the conflict between Calvinists and antiCalvinists at court and in the universities.66 An experienced churchman, he quickly cultivated an anti-Calvinist group in Durham by means of exploiting the unusually concentrated degree of patronage available to him there. Accordingly, he made prebendal appointments in Durham cathedral through a ‘judicious blend of doctrinal considerations, family loyalty and readiness to reward local clerics’, such as Daniel Birkhead.67 Although he was from a relatively humble background, and was not a native of Durham, 68 Neile assimilated himself into county society through this exercise of patronage and by marriage. For example, his half-brother, Richard Newell, received a canonry in 1620, as did one of his chaplains, Gabriel Clarke, who was to marry one of Neile’s nieces. Neile was also able to take advantage of a surviving palatine privilege enjoyed by bishops of Durham, freedom from archiepiscopal visitation. Thus, the veteran Calvinist archbishop of York, Toby Matthew, could not exert any significant limiting influence over the changes brought about by Neile.69 This latitude also marked the distinctiveness of the diocese of Durham.

64 T. Sopwith, A historical and descriptive account of All Saints church in Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle 1826, 118. 65 LP, xiii, ii, no. 953; Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England, 40. 66 Fincham, Prelate as pastor, 197. Neile’s anti-Calvinist group in Durham was matched by the circle of Puritan divines around the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot. 67 Michael Tillbrook, ‘Arminianism and society in county Durham, 1617–1642’, in Marcombe, Last principality, 203 68 See ‘The function of a bishop: the career of Richard Neile, 1562–1640’, in O’Day and Heal, Continuity and change, 40. 69 Tillbrook, ‘Durham 1558–1642’, 481ff.

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Richard Neile’s associations with the elites of Durham were cemented when he championed the county’s drive to secure parliamentary representation in 1621 and 1624.70 The chief proponent of that enterprise was Sir Henry Anderson, educated at the Puritan Christ Church College, Oxford, married to Mary Remington, daughter of the Puritan archdeacon of the east riding of Yorkshire, and vociferously anti-Catholic.71 Nevertheless, he and the antiCalvinist Neile worked together to further the franchise bill through both houses of parliament,72 clearly demonstrating that differences in confessional outlook did not preclude cooperation in other respects, especially regarding local affinities and loyalties. A study of London, contrasting ‘the containment of religious tensions in the sixteenth century and their politically explosive force in the seventeenth’, concludes that the quietude in the sixteenth century was a result of figures like Thomas Tresham performing important brokerage roles between rival religious groupings, albeit for reasons of commercial selfinterest.73 These contradictory forces were mirrored in Newcastle, in the conflict between Henry Sanderson and the grand lessees in the 1590s. 74 Sanderson’s initial complaints about the grand lessees included reports on the religious fortitude of Maddison, Dudley and others of the grand lessees, who happened to have been of the same opinion as himself regarding the dispute.75 He also deplored the fact that the schoolmaster who had been approved by the archbishop of York, bishop of Durham and the late lord president Huntingdon, and diligent ‘discoverer of seminaries’, had been removed by Henry Anderson (senior) during his term as mayor. Sanderson was an ardent and zealous Puritan and he was rabidly hostile to Catholics; but Anderson, too, was a deeply committed Puritan. Moreover, in 1592, Anderson had recommended Sanderson, as an advocate of Newcastle’s interests, to the earl of Huntingdon, lord president of the Council of the North. 76 Since then, however, the kaleidoscope had been shaken and alliances within municipal circles had been transformed. Neile was able further to strengthen his position within his diocese by capitalising on the fact that some of the existing prebendaries in Durham were willing to alter their religious position after 1617. In Newcastle, Thomas

70

See above, Chapter 3. For example, he denounced almost the entire Northumberland gentry as papists in 1617. SP 14/92/17. 72 For the role of Neile and his collaboration with Anderson, see Foster, ‘Parliamentary representation for Durham’, in Marcombe, Last principality. 73 Iain W. Archer, ‘The government of London, 1500–1650’, The London Journal, xxvi (2001), 23–4. As he identifies 1640–2 as the period when ‘several key elements of the arrangements which had neutralized faction were challenged’, it must be assumed the first quarter of the seventeenth century was relatively harmonious too. 74 See above, Chapter 5. 75 BL, MS Lansdowne 81, fo. 104. 76 HMC, Salisbury, iv, 208–10. 71

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Jackson experienced a similar change of view. He began his career as a Puritan, leaving his birthplace in Witton, Durham, to attend Queen’s College, Oxford, the principal seminary for godly ministers, in 1595. He moved to Corpus Christi the following year, where he was later elected president, through the good offices of bishops Neile and Laud, who were by now committed to the style of churchmanship and worship known as sacramentalism or Arminianism. He returned to take up a benefice in county Durham in 1622, before moving to St Nicholas where ‘he was much followed and admired for his excellent way of preaching, which was then puritanical’. According to another biography, his preferment to the Durham living was through Pembroke College, in whose gift it lay. Pembroke, to which Jackson was elected vice president, was a college founded in 1624 by William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke and a staunch Puritan patron.77 Jackson’s personal conversion was probably made in the late 1620s, when he dedicated to the earl of Pembroke the first, but not the second, part of a treatise he had written in defence of freewill, and against the central plank of Puritanism, predestination.78 But the change in doctrinal position of these clerics does not imply a lack of principle, or even a sense of inconsistency. Du Preez’s discussion of ideology and identity observes that individuals defend an ideology because ‘they believe the alternative is chaos’ which could lead to ‘an annihilation of their identity’.79 However, he goes on to explain that, for people to remain committed to a particular outlook, even if society changes, is nonsense, because no group of people can hang on to their identity unquestioningly. Tillbrook has proposed that the rise of Arminianism in the later 1620s as a ‘national phenomenon had been foreshadowed in Durham where the emergence of Arminianism was early and rapid’.80 At an intellectual, or internal, level, Arminianism subjected many Calvinist doctrines to question, especially its teaching on predestination. Its physical, or external, manifestation was through the restoration of ceremonial. In Durham, much of the ‘beauty of holiness’ that had been lost since the Reformation was reintroduced into church services, most notably in the cathedral church. Opposition to these material changes was minimised by the deaths of the chancellor of Durham, Clement Colmore, in 1619, and the archdeacon, William Morton, in 1620. For Neile replaced them with the more sympathetic Gabriel Clarke and John

77

’Some particulars of Dr Jackson’s life from A. Wood’s Athenæ Oxoniensis’, in Works of Thomas Jackson, i, vii–xvi, and further biographical details ‘written by a late Fellow of Corpus Christi college’, ibid., i, xxxix–li. 78 ’Dr Jackson’s vindication of himself . . . [in] answer to Mr Burton’s exception taken against a passage in his treatise of the Divine Essence and Attributes’, written in 1628–9. This was a chapter in a much longer ‘Treatise on the primeval estate of the first man . . .’, written in 1654, in Works of Thomas Jackson, ix, 354–84. 79 Peter du Preez, Social psychology of politics, ideology and the human image, Oxford 1982, 48. 80 Tillbrook, ‘Arminianism and society in county Durham’, 202. 133

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Cradock. The non-resident dean, Adam Newton, resigned in 1620, enabling Neile to appoint Richard Hunt, who was not of a disposition to oppose his bishop.81 Neile could not pack the chapter with supporters, however, which meant that recent developments were not met with by universal approval from the prebendaries. The most vociferous critic of the material and liturgical changes made to the cathedral was the prebendary of the fourth stall, Peter Smart, who voiced his disapproval with increasing rage, culminating in a sermon delivered in the cathedral on 27 July 1628. Entitled The vanitie and downe-fall of superstitious ceremonies, Smart’s sermon was published in Edinburgh that same year, together with a six-page ‘historical narration of some notorious acts and speeches of Mr John Cosens, and some other of his companions’. Cosin, his fellow prebendary, was accused of introducing ‘severall popish ceremonies and practises’ into the cathedral church, ‘especially of erecting altars, and cringing to them, (a practise much in use of late) and of praying towards the east’. Smart railed against the removal of the communion table, the playing of music (especially during the administration of the sacrament, which he particularly deplored), burning candles (he mocked Cosin for spending two hours up long ladders lighting them all) and other changes that reeked of popery. He described his opponents as ‘mangy Arminian hellhounds’, while their practice of facing east during the communion service was ‘abominable, as being used by the Manichees and pagans . . . [and] by necromancers and sorcerers when they act their inchantments’.82 Smart was arrested within hours of completing his sermon and proceedings against him began in the high commission court.83 Yet how far were these innovations pushed through and then imposed on a reluctant diocese by an over-zealous bishop with the collusion of his carefully constructed support base? Smart was in no doubt that Cosin had ‘violently inforced the observation of those ceremonies, going about the church like a mad man’ with the result that ‘Popery and Superstition . . . are like to overthrow the whole Byshoppricke of Durham’.84 But support for Smart, and his views, appears to have been very limited, with no evidence among the justices of the peace, nor from the clerical community. Tillbrook’s exhaustive treatment of the Arminian reaction to the establishment of Protestantism in county Durham concluded that many of the county’s gentry found something reassuring about the visual and aural experience of services with an Arminian

81

Tillbrook, ‘Arminianism and society in county Durham’, 205. The vanitie and downe-fall of superstitious ceremonies: or, a sermon preached in the cathedral church of Durham by one Peter Smart, a preaband there, July 27. 1628, Edinburgh 1628. See also The correspondence of John Cosin, i, ed. G. Ornby (SS, 1869), especially 184, 195. 83 The acts of the high commission court within the diocese of Durham, ed. W.H.D. Longstaffe (SS, 1858), 197ff. 84 Smart, The vanitie and downe-fall. 82

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emphasis.85 He also stressed the distinctive nature of Arminianism in Durham. For the alternative, Scottish Presbyterianism, which was more readily observable to the inhabitants of the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom, was regarded unenthusiastically. The reintroduction of time-honoured traditions and practices in the cathedral church of Durham no doubt stirred memories of fifty years ago, when the northern rebels had endeavoured to effect a similar restoration – memories that remained alive in the 1590s when the rites of Durham were collected and published.86 For a while it seemed that the music and light, silenced and extinguished in 1570, might be reinstated, and would herald the complete transformation of the English church. But it was not to be. The death of Daniel Birkhead, in 1624, prompted some verses from Henry Chomley, who lamented: . . . some cryed a Pillar of the church is gone others the Pullpitt some the Alterstone the great Lights out now doth the Chapter breake the Organs salve by which the Church did speake.87

Soon after his first visitation to his new diocese in 1628, Neile’s successor, bishop John Howson, instructed the dean and chapter to revert to the uniformity of Common Prayer, which was used before Neile’s episcopate.88

Religious identities in north-east England Religious identities clearly were as complex as any other identities. For example, there was the notorious altercation between William Whittingham, dean of Durham, and Edwin Sandys, archbishop of York, who, in many respects, appeared to have much in common. Both had been exiled to the continent during Queen Mary’s reign, Whittingham in Geneva and Sandys in Zurich. They also had similar doctrinal views. For instance, they shared an antipathy to the remaining ‘popish’ influences in the English church, such as vestments and images. Yet, throughout October and November 1578, Huntingdon, as lord president of the Council of the North, was obliged to arbitrate in a series of disputes between the two, which took place in the chapter house of Durham. The dispute arose from Sandys questioning the validity of Whittingham’s orders – as a minister of the order of Geneva – which, Sandys claimed, were not recognised by either ecclesiastical laws or the statutes of England. It led to a heated exchange, which resulted in Sandys labouring under the impression that Whittingham had called him a papist, and culminated in the archbishop 85 86 87 88

Tillbrook, ‘Durham 1558–1642’, 477–582. They form part of the Rites of Durham (SS, 1903). BL, MS Add. 15226, fos 24v–25. SP 16/173/73. 135

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pronouncing that ‘yf I be a papist then thowe art a puritane’ (with its negative connotations).89 The association between Roger Widdrington and Lord William Howard was similarly fragile. Henry Anderson, writing to the king’s principal secretary, Ralph Winwood, in April 1616, about recusancy in Northumberland, reported that ‘my lord William Howard, doth inwardly hate Roger Widdrington, but they dare not dissolve, nor will displease the one the other’.90 Connections were forged and broken for many, varied, and not always readily apparent, purposes. How far religious or ideological considerations were the principal, or even contributory, factors was not always clear. Certainly, in this instance, Anderson felt Howard and Widdrington ‘have no religion among them but the effecting of their wicked ends’. An earlier experience of Roger Widdrington had demonstrated how religious identities shifted and developed as both the religious and the political contexts changed. On 15 February 1605 he had been indicted as a popish recusant at the London and Middlesex quarter sessions – one of a number of recusants who had been apprehended in the area of Great St Bartholomewes.91 Yet their action against recusants at that particular time coincided with the nation-wide drive to reinforce the security of the realm, prompted by King James I and given expression by the lord keeper, Thomas Egerton. In his pre-circuit speech to the assize judges in Star Chamber on 13 February, for transmission to justices of the peace in the localities, Egerton had confirmed that action against (Protestant) ‘schismatics’ would continue alongside diligence against recusants. The London and Middlesex justices were responding with commendable speed to these urgent instructions, although, in common with most magisterial benches, they reacted diligently and rigorously against ‘papists’ while failing to take any steps at all against ‘schismatics’.92 Roger Widdrington and his elder brother Henry had been enjoying markedly improved fortunes after their woeful experiences in the hiatus during the 1590s, which ended when their kinsman by marriage, Sir Robert Carey, was appointed to the wardenship of the middle march in 1598. The following year, Roger was appointed bailiff and steward of the regality of Hexham, while Henry was knighted in 1603, restored to the commission of the peace, elected member of parliament for Northumberland in 1604, and was sheriff of Northumberland in 1606. In the meantime, however, Roger had married Mary, the Catholic daughter of Francis Radcliffe of Dilston, from where the couple

89

BL, MS Add. 33207, fos 5, 7, 9–11. SP 14/86/221. 91 SP 14/12/177. 92 Cases in Camera Stellata, 186–92; for James’s religious methods, see Newton, The making of the Jacobean regime, and for the events of February 1605, see Newton, ‘Sir Francis Hastings and the religious education of James VI and I’. 90

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were presented as recusants in the parish of Corbridge in 1603. 93 Roger’s position began to look still more insecure in the highly charged atmosphere following the king’s resolution to deal with religious extremists of all persuasions, early in 1605. The president of the Council of the North, Lord Sheffield, wrote delightedly to Robert Cecil approving of the king’s intention to implement the laws against papists.94 However, he pointed out that known recusants holding public office must jeopardise the process: and he singled out Roger Widdrington for special mention. Throughout the spring and summer of 1605, Roger Widdrington continued to be the target of the excessively anti-Catholic Henry Sanderson and his associates, Anthony Thompson and John Maughen, ministers of Hexham, and William Morton, archdeacon of Durham.95 They declared that Widdrington and his fellow ‘ringleaders and most dangerous recusants . . . do more harm than any priest’, being able to rally two or three thousand followers to their cause, while they were virtually inviolable on account of Widdrington’s sole authority in Hexham and Bywell. And they pleaded for support from central government against Widdrington. Robert Cecil, however, pronounced that, after careful consideration of ‘all your advertisements’, he had concluded that ‘any extrordinary severity used towards him more than others’ would be objectionable. This reflected a recent letter sent from the king and his council to the sheriff of Northumberland, the diligent and conscientious Protestant, Ralph Delaval, instructing him ‘not to be so forward against recusants’.96 Cecil went on to declare that he was fully aware of the antagonism between Sanderson and the papists, that Sanderson’s nature made ‘his advertisements to be rather apprehensions upon general grounds than any other matter of great consequence’, and that he was disinclined to advise action. Despite his distance from the capital it appears that Sanderson had gained a certain notoriety regarding his bellicosity and opposition to Catholics. For example, writing from his house at Brancepeth, in October 1603, he had complained that ‘papistes’ were as much of a problem in Newcastle as in the counties of Durham and Norhumberland, claiming that he feared for his wife and family’s lives at their hands.97 He also declared that ‘it is highe tyme, that [the recusants’] insolencye and unwarranted boldness were looked into, even for the common cause of Religion, and avodinge such incovenyences, as are likely (by the course they holde) to ensue’.

93

Raine, Test Denelme, i, 177, cited by Forster, ‘The real Roger Widdrington’, 197. Even so, by virtue of his office, Carey had reluctantly been pursuing Francis Radcliffe for his recusancy in February 1601. SP 59/40/40. 94 HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 78–9. 95 HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 112, 189–90, 192–4. 96 HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 293–5; NRO (Gosforth), 1 DE6/2; HMC, Salisbury, xvii, 189. 97 SP 14/4/5. In the 1590s, when he was endeavouring to defeat the grand lessees, he had emphasised their Catholicism, as a further example of their perfidy. The privy council had specifically instructed the archbishop of York and the Council of the North that Sanderson 137

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But, notwithstanding Cecil’s views, on 31 May 1605, the privy council demanded Roger Widdrington’s attendance, together with Randal Fenwick, another politically active Northumberland gentleman, to answer charges that would be made plain to them. In a further letter to the bishop of Durham, a little over a fortnight before the pair were to present themselves before the council, on 13 October, it transpired that Widdrington’s offence was simply default of his recusancy fines.98 The whole business seemed to illustrate the conclusions drawn by the privy council, almost exactly a year before, that Catholics generated much-needed revenue whereas the Puritans only brought discord.99 Very soon after, the country was caught up in the drama of the gunpowder plot. Northumberland was particularly sensitively placed because one of the plotters was Thomas Percy, descended from a younger son of the fourth earl of Northumberland and constable of the current earl’s principal seat in Northumberland, Alnwick Castle. Although Percy’s role was even more shrouded in mystery than that of the other plotters, significantly, he had dined with the earl at his London residence, Syon House, on 4 November, and he was one of the chief suspects.100 Despite his relationship to the ‘notorious recusant’, Roger Widdrington, Henry Widdrington was put in command of Alnwick and Tynemouth castles and charged with hunting down Percy and any other fellow conspirators.101 As far as the central authorities were concerned, Henry Widdrington’s experience of conditions in the north-eastern reaches of the realm, together with his administrative and governmental abilities, outweighed his association with, or sympathies for, Catholics and Catholicism. In any case, denominational affiliations very rarely (if ever) transcended other considerations. For example, Lord Eure had demonstrated how a staunch Protestant could be driven to depend upon Catholics, such as the Grays and Thomas Percy, for support during his term as warden of the middle march in the 1590s.102 At the same time, his deputy, Sir Cuthbert Collingwood of Eslington, proved that he could be a close ally and chief local agent of the ‘Puritan earl’ of Huntingdon, and marry his daughter, Fortuna, to another Puritan, Henry Anderson of Newcastle, while he himself was described as

was not to be one of the two representatives for Newcastle in the forthcoming case to settle the dispute between the grand lessees and others within the town. APC, 1596–1597, 27–8; and see above, Chapter 5. 98 SP 14/15/102. 99 A summary of the meeting was sent by the Spanish ambassador to Philip III. Simancas, Estado, legajo 841, fo. 184. Cited in Albert J. Loomie, sj., ‘Toleration and diplomacy: the religious issue in Anglo-Spanish relations, 1603–1605’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, liii (1963), 55–6. 100 There is abundant discussion of the plot, but Mark Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, Manchester 1991, is a useful exposition of the subject. 101 HMC, Salisbury, vii, 483, 489, 495, 519; SP 14/16/191, 199, SP 14/17/11. 102 See above, Chapter 4. 138

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being ‘extremely bent’ towards Catholicism.103 Family associations across the religious divide were not a bar to a successful career at the very highest levels of government, either. Robert Cecil’s brothers-in-law were Henry and George Brooks, who were involved in Catholic plots at the beginning of James’s reign, while his son married the daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, of the predominantly Catholic family. After the accession of James, with his more relaxed view of Catholics, Thomas Howard’s uncle, Henry, earl of Northampton, enjoyed a very successful career in the highest echelons of government. Yet the king had excluded Thomas Howard’s younger brother, Lord William Howard, from court office because of his ‘devotion to the Jesuits’.104 All of which suggests that, not only were ability and acumen important factors in determining one’s prospects, so too was the extent to which one was prepared to flaunt one’s religious inclinations. Discretion and ingenuity in concealing personal proclivities were essential qualities required of those engaged in Jacobean politics, at every level. While family networks were often stronger than doctrinal divisions. Far from being a coherent body, identifiable through particular ‘Catholic families’, Catholicism transcended kinship groups. Even the ‘Puritan’ earl of Huntingdon’s family displayed clear signs of its Catholic roots and branches. His mother was the niece of Cardinal Pole; his brothers, George, the fourth earl, and Walter, remained Catholic; while their sister married the moderate and courtly Catholic, Edward Somerset, earl of Worcester.105 In the same way, religious divisions were encountered in the families of county Durham and Northumberland’s gentry. For example, on 30 January 1597, Huntingdon’s co-religionist and fellow scourge of Catholics, Lord Eure, was to be found appealing to Lord Burghley for the release of his kinswoman, Mrs Tempest, imprisoned ‘in the common jaole’ by the bishop of Durham for recusancy. In mitigation, Eure vouchsafed that her husband was ‘trulie religious’ and would monitor her behaviour henceforth. Closer to home, both his brother and his son and heir were convicted of recusancy, twenty years later.106 An account of the state of religion in Northumberland, on 8 January 1607, reported that the Ogles were ‘some Protestants, some papists’, as were the Fenwicks, the Carrs and the Selbys.107 The father-in-law of the Protestant Sir John Fenwick, one of the most active justices of the peace, was Sir Henry Slingsby, a Catholic

103

And ultimately he left Eslington to his recusant son. Watts, From border to middle shire, 78, 102, 104, 118; Cross, The puritan earl, xiii, xviii, 159. 104 HMC, Salisbury, xix, 52–3. 105 For further examples, see Diana Newton, ‘The impact on England of James VI and I with particular reference to the religious context’, PhD diss., Liverpool 1995, 157–60. 106 BL, MS Lansdowne 82, fo.11; APC, 1616–1617, 202; J.T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War, London 1969, 243. 107 HMC, Salisbury, xix, 3–5. 139

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member of the Council of the North.108 Sir Francis Radcliffe, whose estates were under sequestration for recusancy, was a brother-in-law of the firmly Protestant Robert Delaval (father of the over-diligent sheriff Ralph), who was later to express his concern about his associations with Thomas Percy and the earl of Northumberland.109 In Durham, George Scrope, the most hard-working non-clerical member of the magisterial bench, was the great uncle of Emmanuel, the eleventh lord Scrope, whose suspected Catholicism (despite the Puritan connotations of his name) was no bar to his becoming lord president of the Council of the North in 1619. And a cadet branch of the Scrope family was composed mostly of recusants. Another Durham justice of the peace was Daniel Birkhead, of Brandon, south-west of Durham, who was Sacrae Theologie Professor and a prebendary of Durham cathedral. He was also a relative of George Birkhead, the archpriest or superior of the English secular clergy, appointed by the pope; while another member of the family, Gerard, was married to the daughter of Dean Whittingham.110 Similarly, in Newcastle, the moderate Catholic William Jenison held high office in the town, while his nephew was a celebrated Puritan preacher.111 Thus, it can be concluded that the religious configurations amongst the county gentry and urban oligarchy of the north-eastern counties of England simply reflected those at the heart of the court and government. Familial loyalties often resulted in confessional divisions within families being actively employed in the family’s best interests. Most importantly, conformist relatives ensured that lands and properties subject to forfeiture for recusancy remained within the family. One example was the conformist Francis Trollope of Eden, related to Thomas Forcer of Harbourhouses by marriage. Trollope leased from the crown, by letters patent, a substantial part of the Forcer lands, forfeited for recusancy in 1593, which he conveyed, the following year, to a group of gentlemen – including John Trollope, Anthony Welbury of Castle Eden, and William Hodgson – on Forcer’s behalf. The deal was witnessed by Robert Wilson of Eden Dene, who, early in 1607, received a lease of further lands forfeited by Thomas Forcer. They were a closely-knit group. On 10 April 1605, the Durham quarter session ordered the sheriff to arrest Francis Trollope, Thomas Forcer, William Claxton of Waterhouses, Samson and John Trollope of Thornley, and others, to appear before the justices to answer for trespass and riot. This may have been a result of the general crackdown on

108

Hugh Aveling, Northern Catholics: the Catholic recusants of the north riding of Yorkshire, 1558–1790, Leeds 1963. 109 Radcliffe addresses him as such, 9 October 1589, NRO (Gosforth), 1DE/5/5; and see CRO (Whitehaven), D/PEN 216, fos 47, 51. 110 Reid, The king’s council in the north, 371; Aveling, Northern Catholics, 262; Durham quarter sessions rolls, 338. 111 SP 14/88/235; Sopwith, All Saints church in Newcastle upon Tyne, 118. Cited by Howell, Puritans and radicals in north England, Lathom, New York and London 1984, 115. 140

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Catholics. Because, apart from Francis Trollop and Robert Wilson, who were ‘beneficiaries’ of Forcer’s forfeited lands, the others all appeared on the extensive roll of estreats (or record of recusancy fines), levied in the January 1607 quarter session.112 The fact that both Trollop’s and Wilson’s wives did not appear on the roll suggests that they might have been church papists, exploiting their immunity on behalf of their friends and relatives. Certainly, they were not part of an identifiable cadre defined by their religious stance. In common with the rest of the country, the general pattern seems to have been one of peaceful coexistence, for most of the time, with religious divisions only becoming discernible at particular times. One such example was the experience of Thomas Chaytor, who lived from 1554 to 1618. His diary, extant for the years between 1612 and 1617, offers an illuminating insight into the last years of his life and the end of his career as registrar of the Durham consistory court and surveyor general of the northern counties. 113 The execution of his offices was just one of his preoccupations, together with antiquarian interests, horse-racing and his family Above all, his family epitomised the relative insignificance of confessional identities in the early modern period. For, despite his position at the heart of the diocesan establishment, his second wife was a Catholic and at least two of their daughters were christened at Croxdale church, most probably according to Catholic rites. In the normal way this connection did not present a problem, except in 1613, when there was a temporary alarm about a Spanish invasion and he was threatened with the sequestration of his office by the bishop. Not only did this come to nothing, but he remained on excellent terms with the bishop thereafter. Otherwise, he was completely at ease with his own and his family’s divergent religious outlook. There seems to be little evidence of a regional identity shaping the north-eastern elite’s religion any more than their religion shaped their regional identity. Yet, in one respect, there was clear evidence of sincere pride in Durham’s very distinctive religious customs, especially when its bishop had initiated a return to those traditional practices. In 1626, Robert Hegg wrote about The legend of St Cuthbert. A native of Durham, who had recently become a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he enthused that, [the] whole castle is repaired and inlightned with many windowes by the Reverend Bishop now incumbent, under whom the Church of Durham seems to renue her age and take a new lease of eternity; whose internal beauty (for her Cathedral musick and majesty of the High Altar and sacred laver) may challenge her sister churches for priority.

112

DRO, D/Fo 9, D/Gr 340, D/Fo 25, Q/S/I 2 m.65d, Q/S/I 3. These are printed in Durham quarter sessions rolls. 113 His diary for the years from 1612 to 1618 is in the Palace Green Library at Durham at Add. MS 866. 141

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His purpose in writing was to discharge ‘this duty I owe to that Countreye, where I had my cradle, to renew the decayed Epitaphs upon the Tombstones of her Antiquaries’.114 It is this attachment to their very particular, ancient customs by the people of the diocese of Durham that is the subject of the next chapter.

114

The legend of St Cuthbert, or the Historie of his Churches at Lindisfarne, Cuncescestre, and Dunholm., by Robert Hegg 1626, printed in Darlington in 1777, 29, 2. It is reproduced in Robert Henry Allan, Historical and descriptive view of the city of Durham, and its environs. To which is added a reprint of Hegg’s Legend of St Cuthbert, London 1824. 142

7

Cultural identities According to Mervyn James, the diocese of Durham was ‘saddled’ with a ‘sense of history’. He explained that ‘inevitable decline and “decay” ’ meant they turned to their ancient traditions as a means of escape from the uncertainties of the world in which they lived, and, instead, contemplated the glories of their antiquity.1 This coincided with a growing interest by the county gentry at large in antiquarian studies, led by scholars such as William Camden, who began compiling his Britannia in the 1570s. In part, the elites’ heightened regard for the ‘past’ was driven by a determination to validate (or even create) their own pedigrees, and was often appropriated by them for precisely that purpose. In county Durham, for example, William Claxton of Wynyard had also been collecting material for a history of Durham since the 1570s, and he was closely involved with the work of the visitation heralds in 1575.2 However, Claxton was a prominent Catholic, who had been a follower of the earl of Westmorland, and his interest reflected the concerns of many of those of a similar disposition in the diocese of Durham, which had at their heart the cult of St Cuthbert. This, more than anything else, underpinned their conscious memory, from 1569, through the 1590s, into the 1620s, and beyond. But it was not the only manifestation of a distinctive sense of identity experienced by those living in the north-eastern parts of England. The urban centres celebrated religious festivals which simultaneously demonstrated their civic pride and yet another sense of particularity. Increasingly, travelling players came from London to Newcastle, bringing from the metropolis to the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom a version of national culture that commemorated a much wider sense of the ‘past’. Moreover, it has been observed that the people of Northumberland ‘prided themselves on being different from other English folk, projecting their menfolk as a warrior elite’,3 most notably in ballads – some of which were known throughout the kingdom – which venerated their chivalrous heroism. 1

James, Family, lineage and civil society, 135, 137. In particular, he meant the Arminian disciples of Richard Hooker, together with the Catholics. See also Nicholas Tyacke, AntiCalvinists: the rise of English Arminianism c.1590–1640, Oxford 1987, 119ff. 2 The visitation heralds found a ‘congenial spirit’ in William Claxton of Wynyarde, at whose house Robert Glover appears to have rested a fortnight while carrying out the visitation in Durham. ‘The descent of Claxton, his kind host, is the fullest in the collection . . .’. See Surtees, History of Durham, 272. 3 Goodman, ‘Border warfare and Hexhamshire’, 50–1. 143

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Collective memories In his ‘Apologie for Poetrie’, which appeared in 1595, the widely travelled Sir Philip Sidney noted that it was customary in Hungary for ‘songes of their Auncestors valour’ to be a feature of their ‘Feasts, and other such meetings’.4 When he came to provide an English equivalent he turned to the kingdom’s north-eastern extremities. Famously, he declared that ‘I never heard the olde song of Percy and Duglas that I found not my heart mooued more then with a Trumpet’. Whether he was referring to ‘The hunting of the Cheviot’ (‘Chevy Chase’ in its broadside, or printed, version) or ‘The battle of Otterburn’ is unclear. There are extant copies of both, from around 1550, in English collections, while The complaynte of Scotland, published around 1550, mentions ‘the hunttis of the cheviot’ and then, very shortly afterwards, a song wherein ‘The perssee & the montgomerie met’.5 They may or may not refer to the same ballad, but it certainly suggests that the episode was part of the repertoire, and collective memory, of both England and Scotland. Perhaps more important is the fact that the two ballads are just two of the thirteen ballads Francis James Child derived from manuscript texts before 1626, out of his collection of 305 English and Scottish ballads.6 This intimates that ballads might have been more prevalent on the borders than elsewhere. It is true that border ballads make up only a small proportion of the total Child canon, collected from later sources (with the richest area of balladry being in northern Scotland);7 but ballads were part of a tradition that had its own particular modes of transmission, which had implications for the manner of their survival. It has been argued that ‘England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . . . was a society in which the three media of speech, script and print infused and interacted with each other in a myriad of ways.’8 Ballads, originally sung by minstrels in the houses of the nobility and gentry who made manuscript copies of them, increasingly were made more widely available in their printed form to become a part of ‘popular culture’. In 1624, Abraham Holland commented on

4

Sir Philip Sidney, ‘An apologie for Poetrie’, in Elizabethan critical essays, ed. G. Gregory Smith, Oxford 1904, i, 178. 5 ’The battle of Otterburn’ is at BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra C IV, and the ‘The hunting of the Cheviot’ is at Bodl. Lib., MS Ashmole 48. See Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge (eds), English and Scottish popular ballads, Boston and New York 1904, 677; Robert Wedderburn, The complaynt of Scotland (c1550), introduction by A.M. Stewart, Scottish Text Society 1979, 51; James Reed, ‘The ballad and the source: some literary reflections on The battle of Otterburne’, in Tuck and Goodman, War and border societies, 94–123. 6 Sargent and Kittredge, English and Scottish popular ballads. 7 Alan Bold, The ballad, London and New York 1979, 62. 8 Adam Fox, Oral and literate culture in England 1500–1700, Oxford 2001, 5. 144

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. . . North-Villages, where every line Of Plumpton Parke is held a work divine. If o’re the Chymney they some Ballad have Of Chevy-Chase, or of some branded slave Hang’d at Tyborne . . .9

This was testament to the ubiquity of Chevy Chase, but only as part of a wider appetite for ‘penny sheets’. Sir Philip Sidney had qualified his admiration of the northern ballad by owning that ‘I must confesse my own barbarousness’, with the implication that such literary output, especially that emanating from the supposedly ‘uncivil north’, was generally perceived as inferior to other forms. However, Sir Henry Saville – who in 1598 assisted Thomas Bodley in restoring the university of Oxford’s library – had in his own library a collection of fifty-two ‘English verse and Balletts and many more thing’ (sic). This included ‘A Ballet on the deathe of Ratlyffe which rose with the earle of Northumberland lord pearse which he maide a lytle spaice before he was hanged’.10 Balladry from the north-eastern parts was thus part of a universal culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Ballads that celebrated the gallant exploits of the nobility were not the only cultural expression of life in the north-eastern reaches of England, however. There were also ‘riding ballads’, which concentrated on the feuds and frays of those slightly lower down the social scale. Very few of these survive, largely because they were not part of the repertoire taken by minstrels into the houses of the elites, and which were later distorted through the medium of print as a consequence. Instead, the ‘riding ballads’ preserved the value systems of the ‘riding surnames’ and reflected the often violent, impoverished and superstitious conditions that prevailed in the north-eastern uplands at the end of the sixteenth century. For instance, ‘The fray o’ Hautwessell’ concerned Sir Robert Carey, in his capacity as warden, repulsing a raid by the Liddesdale Armstrongs on Haltwistle.11 Because these ‘riding ballads’ were transmitted orally, to a more restricted audience than those which celebrated the heroics of the Percys and their followers, they were not diluted or distorted through wider dissemination. In the eighteenth century, the Ettrick Shepherd’s mother famously censured Sir Walter Scott, who printed much of the border balladry, thus: ‘They were made for singin’ and not for readin’, but ye hae broken the charm now, an’ they’ll never be sung mair.’12 Contrary to the rather patronising

9

Tessa Watt, Cheap print and popular piety, 1550–1640, Cambridge 1991, 3, 39. BL, MS Cotton Vespasian A-25, fo. 158. The collection has been printed in Peter J. Seng, Tudor songs and ballads from Ms Cotton Vespasian A-25, Massachusetts and London 1978. 11 M.A. Richardson, The local historian’s table book, Newcastle 1842, ii, 310–12. 12 See James Reed, The border ballads, London 1973, 11. The Ettrick Shepherd, apparently, was James Hogg. 10

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view that non-literate societies were inferior and unrefined, 13 altering the medium of sung tradition destroyed not only its uniqueness but also the degree of attachment to it felt by its proponents. All of which is an extension of the concept that articulating the imagined makes it real, 14 for, until then, the ‘riding ballads’ had represented an exceptionally potent sense of local identity grounded in its own particular customs and practices. The way in which later renditions debased the border ballads can be traced through Sir Philip Sidney’s ‘olde song of Percy and Duglas’. It related to a fourteenth-century incident that was commemorated in both ‘The battle of Otterburn’ and ‘The hunting of the Cheviot’. The mid-sixteenth-century manuscript version of the latter (known later as ‘Child A’) stated that ‘the hontynge off the Cheviat’ was called by old men ‘the battell of Otterburn’. This was a connection not made in the later, broadside version, collected by bishop Percy in the eighteenth century (and known as ‘Child B’). 15 The narratives concerned the provocative decision by Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, to take a party of fifteen hundred men ‘hunting’ in Douglas country, across the border in Scotland, where he was met by Archibald Douglas accompanied by two thousand men. In the subsequent battle, Percy and Douglas fought with each other, and each acknowledged the other’s courage and nobility. The language employed by the two versions was markedly different, however. ‘Child A’, the earlier version, was rousing and animated: Douglas saluted Percy as ‘the manfullyste man yet art thowe / that ever I conqueryd in filde fightynge’; and Percy, after Douglas’s death, lamented that ‘Wo is me for the[e]! / To haue savyde thyy lyffe, I wolde haue partyde with my / landes for years thre[e].’ The later ‘Child B’, on the other hand, had degenerated into a work akin to doggerel verse, to be delivered in a manner that was sing-song rather than lyrical. Hence, Douglas glibly recited to Percy, ‘Thou art the most couragious knight / that ever I did see’, while Percy flatly intoned, ‘Erle Douglas, for thy life, / I wold I had lost my land.’ The contrast between the vivacious and stirring version of events as related in the sixteenthcentury version and its later lack-lustre and banal rendition was striking, and was sustained throughout the ballads. The heroism of a Widdrington ancestor, with his dogged bravery touched by tragedy, was completely transformed from the sentiments conveyed by the narrator of the earlier version. It lamented that, For Wetharryngton my harte was wo that euer slayne shulde be; For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to, yet he knyled and fought on hys kny. 13

See Houston, Scottish literacy, ch. 6, which discusses the tendency to regard oral forms as second best, especially 193–4. 14 See above, Chapter 1. 15 Sargent and Kittredge, English and Scottish popular ballads, 393–7, 397–400. 146

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The same elegy became slightly ludicrous in the later version, which recounted, For Witherington needs must I wayle as one in dolefull dumpes, For when his leggs were smitten of, he fought upon his stumpes.

By transmuting noble sentiment and chivalrous valour into mawkish sentimentality and comedic burlesque, any sense of pride the Widdrington family and their countrymen might justifiably have felt about their forebears was destroyed. The vivacity of expression in the late sixteenth-century version was far more stirring and evocative of the heroism of their ancestors than the humdrum verse that replaced it, rendering the protagonists uninspiring and dull. For northerners, especially those from the north of Northumberland, were fiercely proud of their mode of speech, which ‘shews the antiquity of their blood’.16 Moreover, the congruity of the Scots and those from the North of England, which was most apparent by their articulation of ‘the Saxon language’ that was ‘more incorrupteth then the south’, was a crucial argument for the union of the countries after 1603.17 It was also another expression of those on the far north-eastern borders in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries honouring their distinctive heritage through its relatively recent past. But the martial prowess of their border heroes was just one tradition that was celebrated in the north-eastern parts of the kingdom. In the bishopric of Durham, the legend of St Cuthbert was regularly told and retold. Eventually, and most notably, it became a part of the so-called ‘Rites of Durham’, published by the Surtees Society in 1903.18 The ‘Rites of Durham’ were never a comprehensive or complete record of the ancient and traditional practices peculiar to Durham, however. Ian Doyle, the distinguished scholar and keeper of rare books in the university library of Durham, began a talk on the subject by asking, ‘What were, or are, or is The Rites of Durham?’19 They were (or are) a collection of rituals and ceremonies associated with the bishopric, with the Surtees Society volume drawn from at least seven manuscripts. Its expanded title, ‘Rites of Durham, being a description or brief declaration of all the ancient monuments, rites and customs belonging within the monastical church of Durham before the suppression written 1593’, referred to just one part of one of those manuscripts. This was Bishop John Cosin’s manuscript, which was compiled some time in the 1620s.20 The 1593 ‘Rites’, copied by Cosin, were 16

Fox, Oral and literate culture, 76. SP 14/7/83. 18 Rites of Durham (SS, 1842). 19 I am very grateful to Dr A.I. Doyle for making available to me a copy of his talk on ‘The Rites of Durham’ to the Friends of the Cathedral, on 26 March 2004. 20 DCL, MS B. II. 11. 17

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themselves a copy of a manuscript roll (since unstitched), known as the Hogg Roll, which belonged to Thomas Jefferson Hogg and John Hogg of Norton in Durham, and which was the main authority for Fowler’s edition. The identity of the original author (or authors) of these manuscripts, and the dates they were written, is a matter of speculation. The Hogg Roll is on paper with watermarks attributable to 1593 and it has been convincingly argued that the ‘Rites’, later copied by Cosin, while the product of more than one hand, were, in the final text, the work of one mind, very probably that of William Claxton, who died in 1597.21 The difficult years of the 1590s, marked by economic distress and foreign wars which impacted particularly heavily on the northeastern counties, appear to have triggered a concerted effort to recover the ‘glories’ of Durham’s past. For the work dwelt, at considerable length, on the magnificence of the cathedral church of Durham, the domestic buildings of the monastery and the lives of the monastic community that lived and worshipped there. The life, and legacy, of St Cuthbert occupied much of the work and the whole was rounded off by a description of the processions on certain holy days when the citizens of Durham joined in tribute to the city, and diocese, of Durham. Cosin’s manuscript also included Hegg’s ‘Legend of St Cuthbert’. Written by Robert Hegg, most probably in 1625, it also attracted much attention, having been copied several times in manuscript and then published in three printed editions over the following couple of centuries.22 It has been suggested that some of the material in his manuscript came into Cosin’s hands before he came to the see of Durham, as a prebendary, in 1624.23 The fact that he attributed the History of the Church of Durham to Stephen Hegg, rather than to his son, Robert, implies that the mistake was made very soon after he came to Durham, and before he was fully familiar with its luminaries. Cosin, however, quickly became a stout defender of Durham’s customs.24 Durham’s distinctive traditions continued to attract attention far beyond the north-eastern corner of the kingdom. The distinguished Welsh antiquary, John Davies of Kidwelly, associate of Elias Ashmole and John Aubrey, published The ancient rites, and monuments, of the monastical, and cathedral church of Durham, collected out of ancient manuscripts, about the time of the suppression, in London in 1672. A fellow antiquarian, Richard Rawlinson, had in his collection a copy of The origin and succession of the bishops of Durham, originating

21

DCL, MS C. III. 23; Doyle, ‘The Rites of Durham’, and idem, ‘William Claxton and the Durham chronicles’, in James P. Carley and Colin G.C. Tite (eds), Books and collectors, 1200–1700, London 1997, especially 347–9. 22 For a comprehensive survey of the various manuscripts and printed editions, see Philip Pattenden, ‘Robert Hegge of Durham and his St Cuthbert’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, ns v (1980), 107–23. 23 Rites of Durham (SS, 1842), ix. 24 For example, he took a prominent part in the trial of Peter Smart following his controversial sermon against the newly restored practices in 1628. See above, Chapter 6. 148

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from 1 August 1603 – another treatise which was copied a number of times in manuscript before it was printed. There is no evidence that Davies or Rawlinson ever visited Durham. However, Rawlinson’s The origin and succession was originally published ‘at the Charge of Mr John Hall of Consett in the County of Durham’,25 and Davies was a friend of the similarly named poet, John Hall, of Durham, whom he met at St John’s College, Cambridge.26 The salient fact was that these collectors deemed Durham’s customs worthy of preservation and dissemination. And they continued to exercise a potent effect of the Dunelmian memory, with St Cuthbert its most essential defining feature. An effort to rescue dean Whittingham from his reputation as a ‘puritan bogeyman’ concluded that the most damaging evidence against him, as far as the later Durham antiquaries were concerned, was ‘his supposed hostility to the cult of St Cuthbert’.27 What emerges from the various accounts of the life and legend of St Cuthbert is his overriding interest in the welfare of Durham, which he had an almost magical capacity to protect. This was over and above his concern for the rest of the kingdom. For example, he became a ‘Tutelary [guardian] Dietie against the Scotts’, after King Edmund honoured his shrine on his way north to engage the Scots in battle. His memory even succeeded in inducing King William I to restore to the monks of Durham lands that had been taken away from them.28 Hegg, whose religious sympathies appear to have been traditionalist, was celebrating St Cuthbert for antiquarian rather than spiritual (or doctrinal) reasons. Thus, while he was sceptical about the miracles attributed to the saint’s relics, he was fully alive to the crucial role of his celebrity in the consciousness of the north-eastern parts, from Lindisfarne and Norham in the north through to ‘the Land betweene the Rivers of Tees and Weer’, in the south.29 By highlighting St Cuthbert’s abiding concern for the area’s well-being, Hegg thereby attributed a clear geographic association of the saint with the north-eastern corner of England. St Cuthbert was especially attached to that part of Durham which was ‘girded almost rownd with the renowned River of Weer’.30 This was where he wished his final resting-place to be, as he made clear in the tenth century, two hundred years after his death. In the twelfth century, Symeon of Durham recounted how the monks of Chester-le-Street had claimed the saint’s remains,

25 This is from the title-page of Thomas Rud, The origin and succession of the Bishop’s of Durham, printed from the original manuscript in the Dean and Chapter’s library at Durham, Darlington 1779. 26 See David Hook, ‘John Davies of Kidwelly, a neglected literary figure of the seventeenth century’, The Antiquary, xi (1975). 27 David Marcombe, ‘“A great villain of the Geneva gang”? William Whittingham, dean of Durham: a reassessment’, Conflict and disaster at Durham, Durham 2003, 2, 7. 28 Hegg, Legend of St Cuthbert, 17–18, 21–2. 29 Hegg, Legend of St Cuthbert, 10. 30 Hegg, Legend of St Cuthbert, 22.

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but had been unable to remove them there. Their efforts were frustrated by the fact that no amount of people could move the cart that carried them, for it had become ‘as immoveable as a mountain’.31 Once it was understood that Durham was to be the place of his perpetual rest, however, then a very few people could effortlessly shift it. St Cuthbert’s relics remained in a temporary haven for three years, while the wooded area was cleared to build suitable accommodation for them. This was accomplished with ease when ‘a multitude of people from the whole area between the river Coquet and the river Tees readily came to help not only with this task but also afterwards with the construction of the church’ which was to receive the saint’s body.32 In 1593, it was recorded that ‘Uthred earle of Northumberland caused all the Countrey to taike in hand to hewe & cute downe all the woode that there was growing to make yt inhabitable & then the bishop beganne to worke, and buylde’. Hegg, in the 1620s, adopted a more cynical view when he observed that the volunteer builders ‘were paid for their paynes with Treasure in Heaven, that which there was a never a dearer or cheaper way to build Churches’. 33 Either way, the enterprise depended on a commonality of purpose, albeit with some variation in motivation. Symeon pronounced that the episcopal see remained, thereafter, ‘in the presence of the holy body’. While, ‘the bishop and all the people rejoiced greatly, delighted to be inhabitants of this place where Almighty God wished the body of his servant to rest and made manifest his will’.34 The author of the Hogg Roll simply observed that bishop Aldhun ‘dyd ordayne & make the buship sea to be onely ther in Durham contynewally for ever’. With Hegg, however, pride in St Cuthbert’s crucial role in the foundation of Durham led him to note that the translation of St Cuthbert into the new ‘Basilica’ marked the ‘beginnings of the Church of Durham’. He later enthused that ‘he that hath seene the situation of this Citty . . . may save a Journey to Jerusalem’.35 St Cuthbert, and his city and diocese, exercised a powerful effect on the inhabitants of Durham, which, already, had endured for almost one thousand years. St Cuthbert’s legend was regularly manipulated to satisfy different purposes and circumstances. In particular, his predictions about the future of the church, and his instructions about his body in the event of its being in danger were re-interpreted according to prevailing concerns. For Symeon, it was the arrival

31 Symeon of Durham, Tract on the origins and progress of this the church of Durham, ed. and trans. David Rollason, Oxford 2000, 144–7. 32 Symeon of Durham, Tract, 148–51. 33 Rites of Durham (SS, 1842), 66; Hegg, Legend of St Cuthbert, 19. 34 Symeon of Durham, Tract, 153. 35 Rites of Durham (SS, 1842), 67; Hegg, Legend of St Cuthbert, 20, 22. These sentiments were reminiscent of Bernard of Clairvaux, five hundred years before, who informed the bishop of Lincoln that his young canon, Philip, had found the ‘free Jerusalem’ at his abbey at Clairvaux. See The letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. Bruno Scott James, Sutton 1998, letter 67, 90–2.

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of the heathen Danes which had reminded the bishop of Durham of the saint’s directions. He informed his monks that he ‘should much prefer it that you should raise up my bones from the grave, take them away with you, and dwell as inhabitants of whatever place God may provide for you, than that you should for any reason condone iniquity, and bow your neck to the yoke of the schismatics’. He was forced to make such a provision because he ‘had in his own time foreseen with the spirit of prophesy the future peril of his church’.36 By 1603 it seemed to some that the church had been visited by a much greater peril. A treatise called The origin and succession of the Bishops of Durham was ‘collected out of the ancient and fair Records of the Cathedral Church of Durham’, in August that year, precisely because ‘many of the ancient records have perished in these late troublesome times’. This put a quite different construction on St Cuthbert’s counsel for his monks. In this version he ordered that they should take his bones and ‘fly from these places’, thereby introducing a note of greater urgency and jeopardy, as he ordered that they should not ‘submitt yourself to the yoak and servitude of Wicked Schismatiques’.37 Unlike the misguided ‘barbarians’ of the ninth century, the saint and his successors were under threat from a far more dangerous quarter: within the church. Paradoxically, this was a return to Bede’s interpretation of the episode in the mid-eighth century – long before the pagan invasions of the ninth century – to whom the ‘schismatics’ were most probably those who had not adopted ‘Roman’ practices.38 Thus, the battle on behalf of Rome and its conventions had been fought repeatedly and resolutely in England’s north-eastern parts. At the beginning of a new reign, and with the extinction of the dynasty that had presided over the Reformation, hopes were high across the religious divide in 1603. St Cuthbert’s warnings about the future of the church were clearly manifest, ‘as the sequell and experience have made it most apparent’; and his words seemed to be especially pertinent to those living under the spiritual leadership of bishop Toby Matthew, who was notoriously diligent against Roman Catholic recusants.39 By the time Hegg came to recount the occurrence in the 1620s, however, he made only a brief reference to St Cuthbert’s last will and testament, which simply desired that if the monks should have to escape from a pagan invasion they should take his bones with them. With

36

Symeon of Durham, Tract, 100–1. Rud, The origin and succession, 3. 38 Bede’s account of St Cuthbert’s instruction to his monks – that he preferred that they escape with his bones rather than ‘bow your necks under the yoke of schismatics’– came shortly after Cuthbert’s exhortation that they ‘have no communication with those who depart from the unity of the Catholic peace’. Clearly, Bede wished to attribute his own Roman convictions to his favourite saint. See Two lives of Saint Cuthbert: a life by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne and Bede’s prose life, texts, trans. and notes by Bertram Colgrave, Cambridge 1940, 282–5, 356. 39 Rud, The origin and succession, 3. 37

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Durham now under the protection of a bishop who was restoring many of its traditions and customs, the memory of St Cuthbert no longer needed to be invoked, except in so far as he epitomised the essence of the north-eastern diocese. As well as his involvement in synthesising the ‘Rites’ associated with St Cuthbert, William Claxton was also active in collecting and copying Durham chronicles ‘to an extent and of an importance which has not been appreciated’. He appears to have been part of a network of antiquarians who exchanged books and manuscripts with one another both locally and further afield. He also corresponded with William Camden and John Stow, and supplied them with matter.40 He was clearly working on an historical compilation relating to the bishopric of Durham, for, while he was furnishing Stow with material for his wider projects, he was anxious to have a work returned to him which pertained particularly to Durham.41 He had access to an impressive range of material, including volumes about the bishops of Durham and the saints of Northumberland – a rare instance of the two north-eastern counties being subject to similar treatment, albeit as the diocese of Durham. It is impossible to gauge the full extent to which Claxton’s interest in the history of Durham and Northumberland was shared by his neighbours; but there is some evidence. John Calverley made one of the earliest copies of Hegg’s work on St Cuthbert some time between 1625 and 1628.42 Given that Calverley’s grandfather, Sir William, had originally settled in Durham after his Yorkshire property had been destroyed during the 1569 rebellion, it is unlikely that John Calverley was driven by religious considerations to take an interest in Durham’s saint. However, both John Calverley and his father distinguished themselves by their active public service in their adopted county thereafter, so it is not surprising that this commitment extended to a curiosity and concern with its history. In his will, Claxton left his books to Thomas Chaytor of Butterby and John Richardson of Durham, both of whom, it must be concluded, were similarly interested in Durham’s past.43 Another notable Durham antiquary who took an interest in the legacy of the county and diocese of Durham was John, Lord Lumley. His motivation for collecting memorabilia about the past was strictly confined to promoting the reputation of his own family, however. He had turned to his books, pictures and ancestry following his loss of favour at court, after his involvement in the Ridolfi plot. His interests were sharpened by the death of all three of his children in infancy, leaving him without an heir. Under his auspices, Lumley Castle ‘was steadily transformed into a pantheon dedicated to the vanished

40

Doyle, ‘Claxton and the Durham chronicles’, 335; Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 272–3. BL, MS Harley 374, cited by Doyle. 42 John Calverley was Hegg’s brother-in-law. BL, MS Add. 27423. And see Pattenden, ‘Hegge and St Cuthbert’, 108–9. 43 Wills and inventories (SS, 1860), 272–3. 41

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glories of his house’.44 The arms of all his ancestors lined the inner porch; a huge white marble conduit, with his and his second wife’s arms, stood in the courtyard; an equestrian statue of Edward III graced the great hall; and the 1590 inventory of his goods included seventeen imaginary portraits of his ancestors as well as a copy of the ‘Westminster portrait’ of Richard II delivering the writ of parliament to Ralph, first Lord Lumley. Apparently, James I, faced with the ‘genealogical megalomania’ of the last Lord Lumley was led to remark, ‘I did’na ken Adam’s ither name was Lumley.’45 When Lumley died, in 1609, his estates passed to a grandson of his grandfather’s brother. The comparison with Adam, therefore, could not have been less appropriate, for his death marked the extinction of his branch of the family. But fifteen years before, he had ensured that his august family would be immortalised when he removed two effigies, which he mistakenly believed to be his ancestors, from Durham cathedral a nd placed them in Chester-le-Street church along with twelve other effigies, most likely Elizabethan fakes. Providence clearly was more important than provenance when Lumley came to eternalise his occupation of this world. This was a weighty matter that concerned many of Lumley’s neighbours. On the one hand, the permanent resting-place of one’s corporeal remains, and the final tangible expression of having existed, was a crucial matter, to be determined in life.46 However, as the natural body decayed, it was essential that the social body, or the individual’s place in society, be properly commemorated. ‘Death’, wrote Nigel Llewellyn, ‘is both a moment in time and a ritualised process; it also refers to a physical transformation and a social phenomenon.’47 Unlike the transient nature of the spoken reminiscence, funeral memorials were designed to be a permanent dedicatory to the deceased. Thus, the monumental body ensured that the social body was not subject to the decay endured by the natural body. And memorials helped to shape an individual’s place in both the collective memory and their relatives’ private thoughts.48 Such memorials were strictly reserved for those of elite status in the early modern period. Weever’s account of funeral monuments, written in 1631, explained that ‘it was the use and custome of reverend antiquitie, to interre persons of the rusticke or plebeian sort, in Christian burial, without any sort of remembrance of them, either by tombe, gravestone, or epitaph’.49 The lesser gentry were remembered by a flat gravestone, which was engraved with the name of the defunct, the date of his decease, and maybe other

44

Roy Strong, The English icon, London 1969, 45. Nikolaus Pevsner, County Durham, revised by Elizabeth Williamson, London 1983, 360–1; Strong, The English icon, 45. 46 See above, Chapter 2. 47 Llewellyn, Art of death, 7. 48 Llewellyn, Art of death, 101. 49 John Weever, Ancient funeral monuments with in the united monarchy of Great Britaine, Ireland, and the Ilands adiacent, London 1631, 10; ch. 3 is ‘Of sepulchres answerable to the degree of the person deceased’. 45

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particulars, which could also be on a plate. ‘Gentlemen which were of more eminancie, had their effigies or representation, cut or carved upon a Terme or Pedistall . . . formed from the waste upwards’, with more details recorded than on the mere gravestone. While ‘Noble men, Princes, and Kings had . . . their Tombes or Sepulchres . . . withal their personages delineated, carved and embost’. This correlation between type of monument and social rank explains their incidence in the north-eastern counties. A study of extant sculpted funeral monuments erected between 1530 and 1660 reveals a clear relationship between the relative wealth of the county and the distribution of such monuments. Predictably, Durham has 0.1 per cent of the total surviving monuments in the country, and Northumberland 0.2 per cent; or one monument over 202.8 square miles and 201.9 square miles respectively, compared with 2.86 square miles in Middlesex and London and 4.94 in Kent.50 But this also reflects the social composition of Durham and Northumberland. Hence, the vast majority of their elites’ memorials were engraved slabs, marking their place in the floor of the nave, or even the chancel.51 (Paradoxically, this ultimately meant they were destined to be obscured by the demands of later congregations, for they are largely hidden under the ubiquitous carpets which are a feature of even the most modest parish churches.) The few exceptions include Margery Bellasis, whose funeral brass in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Houghton-le-Spring is now located very close to the tomb of Sir Rowland Bellasis, knighted by King Henry III. Indeed, all the extant monuments but one in Northumberland and Durham are located in their lowland parts. 52 Otherwise, it was certain Newcastle merchants who bucked the trend and erected for themselves elaborate memorials, such as the Maddisons and Halls in St Nicholas church. Such edifices fuelled Weever’s contempt, having complained that ‘in these times . . . by some of our epitaphs more honour is attributed to a rich quondam Tradesman, or griping usurer, then is given to the greatest Potentate entombed in Westminster’. At death, the prejudices expressed by Sir Thomas Smith, who judged ‘citizens and burgesses’ to be ‘of none accompte’, at the beginning of the period covered by this book, were confirmed at its end.53 Above all, it was a further demonstration of Newcastle representing an alternative configuration to that of either counties Durham and Northumberland, where the location of memorials reflected the subregions within them. 50

Nigel Llewellyn, Funeral monuments in post-reformation England, Cambridge 2000, 8–13. Sir William Selby and his nephew lie in fabulous tombs with coloured alabaster effigies, but these are at Ightham, in Kent, where they both settled. The inscriptions, however, clearly identify them as men of the North. 52 I am grateful to Professor Llewellyn for supplying me with details of monuments in Northumberland and Durham. See also C.H. Hunter Blair, Northumbrian monuments or the shields of arms, effigies and inscriptions in the churches, castle and halls of Northumberland, Newcastle 1924. 53 Weever, Ancient funeral monuments, 10–11; Smith, De republica, 73. 51

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The two north-eastern counties were subject to the more empirical and systematic approach, adopted by Raphael Holinshead and others, in their Chronicles, of England, Scotland and Ireland, in 1576, and then by William Camden, in his Britannia. Begun in 1577, and in its sixth edition by 1607, Britannia was first translated into English in 1610.54 It was commended in the Camden Society centenary lecture for ‘the range and originality of its learning, and in its seminal importance for the developing study of antiquity on the basis of material artifacts as well as of textual evidence’.55 In explaining his methodology, Camden recognised (as do his successors) that his chosen mode of demarcation, ‘the severall Countries’, was conceived either ‘naturally’ (topographically), ‘nationally’ (demographically), or ‘diversely and civilly’ (politically). He explained that he had elected to use the third form, which ‘seemeth properly pertinent to this place’, whilst, at the same time, paying due attention to the others, throughout his work.56 But, although the work was arranged by country, Britannia’s alternative title, ‘a chorographical description of the flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland’, implied that it would be a study of regions. Accordingly, he provided a ‘Chorographical Table or Map’ of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, where the ‘Kingdom of Northumberland was found to contain the counties of Lancaster, Yorke, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland, and the Countreys of Scotland to Edenburgh-frith’.57 This is what was to be expected, and seems to conform to the notion that the North in its entirety, rather than the North East (howsoever it was conceived), continued to be a recognisable entity in the late sixteenth century. Holinshead had dismissed the ‘sundrie regions to have beene sometime in this Iland’ because they ‘are not yet verie perfectlie knowne unto the learned of these daies’.58 Rather than ‘increase conjecture’, he decided to ‘begin with such a ground as from whence some better certaintie of thinges may be derived’; that is, the divisions or shires, created by King Alfred. It would seem the notion of ‘region’ was as elusive in the late sixteenth century as it remains today. When Camden came to deal with the individual counties, in the main body of his work, he further organised them according to the peoples that first inhabited them A rather surprising picture emerged. For the ‘bishopric of Durham’, together with Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmorland and Cumberland, was found to have been inhabited by the ‘Brigantes’, while Northumberland was alone in having been peopled by the ‘Ottadini’, making the two northeastern counties quite different racially. Camden began each section with a discussion about their ethnic origins, before going on to describe the separate 54

Holinshead, Chronicles; Camden’s Britannia. Patrick Collinson, ‘One of us? William Camden and the making of history’, TRHS, 6th ser., viii (1998), 144. 56 Camden’s Britannia, 154. 57 Camden’s Britannia, 157. 58 Holinshead, Chronicles, 257. 55

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political counties of which they were composed. The classical authorities upon which Camden relied had portrayed the Brigantes as ‘right valiant’ and ‘of especiall note among ancient Authors’, while the Ottadini were noted for having ‘called in the Caledonians to assist them and take arms with them’, against the ‘Britans’.59 This clear contrast between the honourable Dunelmians and the perfidious Northumbrians was reinforced by the way in which they behaved and were perceived thereafter. Camden’s digest of Durham incorporated fulsome tributes from a distichon (or couplet) which hailed Durham as: . . . by art and site of place well fensed, and now farewell, Where for devout religion the Mitre doth excell.

Thereby, the bishopric’s long-standing reputation for piety was clearly established, throughout the kingdom. More contemporaneously, a hexastichon (or six-line poem) by John Johnston, the eminent Scottish poet, concluded: Of Armes or of Religion may other boast, I grant, For Armes and for Religion both, this City makes her vaunt.60

Here was the familiar juxtaposition of the pious warrior, which epitomised the enduring and distinctive palatinate associations of Durham. The people of Northumberland, on the other hand, who came from quite different stock, had their characters formed by their landscape and situation. There the land was ‘for the most part rough’ which ‘seemeth to have hardened the inhabitants, whom the Scots their neighbours also made more fierce and hardy’. Thus was bolstered the perception of the very far north-eastern reaches of the realm, which were occupied by the impious, or uncivil, warrior, in direct contrast to the bishopric. The only parts of Northumberland with any redeeming features were those parts that yielded sea coal.61 As far as the kingdom’s north-eastern extremities were concerned, the cultural space described by Camden was quite clearly predicated on its physical space. But, more important, the two northeastern counties emerged as quite distinct from one another in Camden’s Britannia, which was reinforced by the maps he chose to illustrate his work. Christopher Saxton’s county maps, published in his Atlas of England and Wales in 1576, presented the northern counties, beginning with Yorkshire, then Durham, Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumberland, and finally Northumberland, which was precisely the order in which Camden listed the counties of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumberland.62 Moreover, an analysis of Saxton’s

59

Camden’s Britannia, 685, 796 Camden’s Britannia, 741. 61 Camden’s Britannia, 799. 62 William Saxton, Atlas of England and Wales, 1576. And see Keith Wrightson’s observations in ‘Elements of life: the re-making of the north-east, 1500–1700’, in Colls and Lancaster, Northumbria. 60

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surveying techniques indicates that he adopted the administrative county rather than topographically homogeneous areas for the base of his surveys.63 No attempt was made to conjoin Durham and Northumberland, or to suggest that they represented any kind of coherent whole. Lord Burghley had a proof set of Saxton’s county maps, including a beautiful, and very detailed, map of Northumberland, which he heavily annotated with the names and residences of the principal inhabitants. On the back were noted all the justices of peace for the county. In another hand are a list and descriptions of the ‘townes that part the est and middle marches’, highlighting his interest in that troublesome part of the kingdom. On a map in a similar style, for Durham, Burghley also recorded the names of the justices of peace on the reverse, while he annotated another map of Durham with the names of the leading residents and their homes.64 This was part of his efforts to redress the deficiencies of the distance from the capital to the North. In November 1569, when the North was in the grip of rebellion, he had written to Cambridge university requesting information about the ‘alliances and kindred’ of students from the North.65 He noted pedigrees showing the intermarriages and connections of a number of Northumberland families on the back of an abstract of the 1595 muster. And a long letter from William Selby to his nephew, also William Selby, cataloguing the assaults made by the Scots in the east march, was glossed throughout by Burghley, as he underlined names and added aidesmémoire for himself in the margin.66 But, although Burghley’s principal concern was security, Saxton did not always take the trouble to travel any further up remote valleys than he thought strictly necessary. Thus, Teesdale and Weardale are truncated on his map of Durham, compromising its value, and compelling Burghley to draw up maps of his own, on occasion, such as one of the ‘debateable lands’ in Liddesdale.67 Paradoxically, maps originally were produced for a central executive increasingly determined to intervene in the affairs of the localities and to present an image of England as a ‘congeries of colourfully delineated counties’. They were only later regarded as ‘simple expressions of particularist local patriotism’.68 The county basis for Saxton’s Atlas was a practical convenience, impelled by the necessity of securing administrative support from county officials.

63

Gordon Manley, ‘Saxton’s survey of northern England’, The Geographical Journal, lxxxiii (1934), 308–16. 64 BL, MS Royal 18 D III fos 67, 68, 70, 71, 72. 65 Cambridge university archives, Lett.9.B.3.a, b, cited by Victor Morgan in his ‘Cambridge university, religion and the regions, 1560–1640’, in Edward Royle (ed.), Regional studies in the history of religion in Britain since the later middle ages, Humberside 1984, 64. 66 SP 59/30/265, SP 59/32/38. 67 Manley, ‘Saxton’s survey of northern England’, 314; P.D.A. Harvey, Maps in Tudor England, London 1993, 47–8 and plate 34. 68 Victor Morgan, ‘The cartographic image of “the country” in early modern England’, TRHS, 5th ser., xxix (1979), 45, 44. 157

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Urban culture It was once claimed that, until urban decay was arrested, which was not usually before the late sixteenth century, English provincial towns ‘are most notable for how little . . . they contributed to the cultural and social life of their age’.69 But, since the medieval period, towns had long been important foci of community and civic life. Most particularly, towns staged dramatic productions and pageants, generally of a religious nature, which were supported by the various guilds and religious fraternities of the towns. Newcastle and Durham were no exception, with their annual Corpus Christi celebrations taking pride of place throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and beyond. John Weever, a Lancashire poet and antiquary writing around 1630, was of the opinion that Corpus Christi celebrations were a northern rather than a southern institution.70 Through them, ‘the urban community could effectively present and define itself in relation to the outside world’, as well as ‘attracting an extra-mural audience from the surrounding countryside’. 71 The Corpus Christi festivities began with a procession. Precedence and order were strictly regulated, as the consecrated host was conveyed, with appropriately splendid ritual and ceremony, throughout the streets. Newcastle’s procession assembled at the Newgate, and late arrivals, who might be deemed to compromise this crucial manifestation of their town or city’s prestige, were subject to a fine.72 The day culminated in pageants and plays, sponsored by the guilds and designed to display their members’ relative positions in the urban community and their sense of worth.73 The subjects of twelve (out of approximately twentyfive) of Newcastle’s cycle of plays have been extracted from the records of the various guilds’ indentures. They covered biblical episodes, from the Creation of Adam (by the bricklayers and plasterers) to the Burial of Our Lady St Mary the Virgin (by the masons). In addition, the text of the shipwrights’ play – on the story of Noah’s Ark – survives in a rather poor eighteenth-century version.74 Notwithstanding its textual problems, the play exhibits the clear pride of the shipbuilders of Newcastle in their vocation, especially as they are

69

R.B. Dobson, ‘Urban decline in late medieval England’, TRHS, 5th ser., xxvii (1977), 21. See above, Chapter 5, for Newcastle’s role as focal point. 70 Weever, Ancient funeral monuments, 405. 71 Mervyn James, ‘Ritual, drama and social body in the late medieval English town’, P&P, xcviii (1983), 12. 72 The Tailors’ indenture of 1536, which includes a summary of the fines, is in the Tyne and Wear Archives Department at TW GU/ty/1/1. 73 See, for instance, Alan H. Nelson, The medieval English stage, Corpus Christi pageants and plays, Chicago and London 1974. 74 Norman Davis (ed.), Non-cycle plays and fragments, Early English Text Society, Oxford 1970, xl–xlvii, 19–31. The only copy of the play was modernised and updated, in such a way that much of the sense was lost, by Henry Bourne and published four years after his death, in 1736. 158

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portrayed as the agents of God, who crafted the ship that was to save mankind. No doubt, other plays conveyed similar messages of professional self-esteem. The Corpus Christi celebrations in Durham continued to exercise a powerful effect on the collective memory, even when such rituals and festivities were either abolished or altered, after the Reformation. A detailed description of ‘the Auncient solemnytie of procession vopn corpus christi day within the church and cities of durham, before the suppression’ was an important element of the ‘rites of Durham’. A particular feature of the Durham festivities was the way in which the ‘Corpus Christi shrine all fynlye gilted’ was carried by four priests, at the head of the procession of all the churches of the town, to the palace green. There, by ‘Wyndeshole yett’, it halted and was joined by ‘Sancte Cuthbert Banner browghte fourth with two goodly faire crosses’, where the prior, convent and choir met it on their knees. The host was returned to the abbey church by the prior and his attendants, while ‘all the Banners of the occupacions dyd followe . . . goying Rounde about Saincte Cuthbert fereture [shrine]’.75 Thus, the celebrations, which had come to be a clear manifestation of the symbiosis between the civic and ecclesiastical authorities, were extended in Durham to incorporate the potent symbolism of St Cuthbert. As such, they clearly underlined the specifically distinctive nature of the town where they were devised and performed, and they were designed to reinforce parochial sentiments. Notwithstanding the gradual suppression of its religious celebrations, urbanbased drama did not disappear after the Reformation. For a new, secular civic culture was established in place of religious festivals, which ensured that the urban social world was not transformed beyond recognition. The ‘precepts and practices of civic community’ in terms of practical responsibilities and dependencies, ceremony and ritual, and its structuring of everyday living ‘formed an important context for a citizen’s social relations and sense of self’.76 Thus, while Newcastle’s Corpus Christi plays seem to have come to an end in 1581, they were still being performed up until then. There is evidence for plays contributed by the Cooks’ Ordinary (guild) in 1575, the Millers’ Ordinary in 1578, the Slaters and Bricklayers’ Ordinary in 1579, and the Masons’ Ordinary in 1581.77 Thereafter, the account books of Newcastle have abundant evidence

75

Rites of Durham (SS, 1842), 107–8, and cited by Nelson as exemplifying the pomp and lavish spectacle of the procession: The medieval English stage, 34. See also John McKinnell, The sequence of the Sacrament at Durham (Papers in North-eastern History, viii, 1998), esp. 3–7. 76 Vanessa Harding, ‘Reformation and culture 1540–1700’, in Clark, Cambridge urban history, 263, 275, 288; Philip Withington, ‘Two renaissances: urban political culture in postReformation England reconsidered’, HJ, xliv (2001), 252. 77 The civic enrolment book, vol. 3 (1659–69), in the Tyne and Wear Archives Department, contains haphazardly organised copies of records from sixteenth-century companies or ordinaries. Entries relating to 1575, 1578 and 1581 are at TW 544/72, fos 46, 54–5 and 52. That of 1579 is in Brand Ms 10, in Newcastle Central Library, at L942.82 159

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of payments to musicians, poets, players and other entertainers right up to the outbreak of the civil war in 1642. These included travelling entertainers, such as the king of Scotland’s musicians in 1559, a Scottish poet in 1596, and waits (or official bands of singers maintained by particular towns) from as far afield as Boston in Lincolnshire and King’s Lynn in Norfolk, in 1598, 1608 and 1616.78 The east coast connections, which were part of the North Sea networks established as a result of Newcastle’s trading interests since at least the fourteenth century, meant that its culture was increasingly exposed to external influences. Such influences were reinforced by the regular arrival of travelling players in Newcastle, a phenomenon whose zenith almost exactly coincided with the period covered by this book. Their plays were written and designed to be staged anywhere;79and it is not inconceivable that they incorporated local and topical references (just as stand-up comedians employ on tour, today). Queen Elizabeth’s players came to Newcastle in 1591 and 1593, and Queen Anne’s in 1615.80 In addition, those of the Lord Admiral, and of the earls of Derby, Hertford, Huntingdon, Leicester, Lincoln, Pembroke and Sussex, played at Newcastle, as well as those of Lords Bartholomew, Darcey, Dudley, Monteagle, Morley, Ogle, Stafford and Willoughby, between 1575 and 1615.81 This is a significant proportion of the thirty-seven Greater Men’s companies that have been identified as active outside London between 1559 and 1645. The records indicate that Newcastle made payments to thirty-nine companies of touring players over a period of forty years. Although that was considerably fewer than Bristol, Coventry, Gloucestershire, Devon, Somerset and Norwich, it was comparable to Cambridge, Dorset, Shropshire, Sussex and York, and was significantly more than Chester, Cumberland, Westmorland, Cornwall, Herefordshire and Lancashire, who were included on only a handful of tours.82 That so many of the leading companies were prepared to travel as far as Newcastle suggests a clear demand. Newcastle was visited by players almost

N536 B (not foliated). They are printed in Records of early English drama: Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. J.J. Anderson, Toronto and Manchester 1982, 58, 62, 63, 71. 78 Chamberlains’ account books, TW 543/19, fos 150, 12, 112, 116, TW 543/21, fos 246, 285, and printed in Records of early English drama: Newcastle, 129, 115, 125, 148, 149. 79 Professional actors periodically touring the country can be traced back to the fifteenth century, but from 1559 the practice was closely regulated; it persisted long after permanent, purpose-built theatres were erected in the capital. See Siobham Keenan, Travelling players in Shakespeare’s England, Basingstoke 2002, 2–3, 13–14 and passim. Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearian playing companies, Oxford 1996, 36. 80 Chamberlains’ account books, TW 543/18, fos 199, 150, TW 543/22, fo. 269, and printed in Records of early English drama: Newcastle, 79, 92, 148. 81 See Records of early English drama: Newcastle, passim. 82 See tables 9.1 and 9.2 compiled from the Records of early English drama collections by Keenan, in Travelling players, 166–7. 160

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every year between 1575 and 1600 for which there are records, sometimes by two or three different companies, and, in 1593, by no fewer than six.83 As part of the touring circuit, the inhabitants of Newcastle were exposed to the same cultural influences as their sophisticated metropolitan counterparts. This marks a significant difference between older religious festivities, which were firmly located in the physical space of the town where they were devised and performed, and the peripatetic secular touring theatre that replaced them. It was also another example of the Newcastle/London nexus which was already well established between their respective commercial elites. Far from being an isolated backwater, Newcastle was a receptor and conduit for a national culture, which spread beyond the town into the north-eastern counties. For, while the size of audiences can only be a matter of speculation, it is extremely unlikely that touring companies ventured as far north as Newcastle for a single performance, especially given that they were mostly there in the winter months. It could, therefore, be assumed they reached a much wider audience than the citizens of Newcastle. If those audiences were drawn from north and south of the Tyne, then a very clear case can be made for Newcastle becoming a cultural focal point in the north-eastern parts of England during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This was over and above the three criteria, according to Peter Clark and Paul Slack, that distinguished provincial capitals from mere county towns.84 The first of those determinants was a municipality’s position as a social centre. Unfortunately, there has been little written about urban elites as either a social or a cultural grouping in early modern England, but a study of sociability in the North East of England between 1600 and 1750 goes some way to rectifying the deficiency for Newcastle.85 It firmly establishes the town as having been a centre for sociability from at least the early seventeenth century. The other two criteria that characterised provincial capitals were their long-distance and overseas trade, and their connections with specialist local industry. Newcastle had long been an important trading and commercial centre, while its position was reinforced by its function as the principal provisioning centre for the northeastern parts and beyond. But the town’s dual role as a market centre and as a port was also a major factor in its success, which could explain why Newcastle, rather than Durham, emerged as the social and cultural centre for the northeastern counties. Although they had both staged Corpus Christi plays, Durham, dominated by its clerical community, was more constricted in its scope, and 83

In common with the rest of England, players and acting companies toured less frequently by the middle of James I’s reign. See Keenan, Travelling players, 183–4. The nature of the performances was changing as well. In 1607, the only reference to players in Newcastle referred to the ones ‘wch had the baboone’. TW 543/21, fo. 198. 84 Peter Clark and Paul Slack, English towns in transition, 1500–1700, Oxford 1976, 50. 85 Jonathan Barry makes this point in ‘Civility and civic culture in early modern England: the meaning of urban freedom’, in Burke, Harrison and Slack, Civil histories; King, ‘Sociability in the north east of England’. And see Chapter 5. 161

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less able to absorb the consequences of the Reformation with its cultural secularisation. Newcastle, on the other hand, with its links to the capital and the continent, was a receptor for the full range of cultural impulses of the early modern period, just as the sea port of Liverpool, with its Atlantic trade, was the gateway for American culture in the late 1950s. On the one hand, the internally driven religious entertainments, especially in the period immediately before that covered by this book, reinforced feelings of singularity and distinction in the people of the towns where they were realised. On the other, Newcastle’s external connections, and its place in a wider national culture, assured its position as a provincial capital, with the concomitant assumption that there was a region for it to dominate.

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8

Conclusion: regional identity and the elites of north-eastern England When William Cuningham wrote his Cosmographical glasse, in 1559, to help readers understand and use astronomy and mathematics for geographical computations, he promised that ‘Regions, Prouinces, Ilandes, Cities, Townes, Villages, Hilles: also the commodities of euerye Countrye, the natures of the Inhabitauntes, Lawes, Rightes, and Customes’ would be ‘exactlye described’.1 The region, thus, was just one of the geographical terms current in the sixteenth century and only one of several manifestations of the physical space by which the elites of the north-eastern parts of England might have identified themselves. However, the notion of regions was not yet given widespread application. Holinshead dismissed regions as the basis for his Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1576, because they ‘are not yet verie perfectlie knowne unto the learned of these daies’.2 Not until the later seventeenth century were regions defined spatially according to landscapes. Until then they were regarded as units of regnum, or rule. 3 And, certainly, it was as local governors, in their capacity as justices of the peace, aldermen, deputy lieutenants, sheriffs, mayors and (peculiar to the county and towns of Northumberland) members of parliament that the county gentry and urban oligarchies of England’s north-eastern parts engaged with their territory. A close study of those who elected to serve their communities, by actually turning up to sit on the magisterial bench, or by contributing to parliamentary debates on behalf of their constituents, has demonstrated a clear affinity with, and commitment to, the areas for which they were responsible. But this was firmly based on the county or town, with any sense of identity thus engendered defined accordingly. The concept of regions as a foundation upon which to construct identities remains problematic and would confirm Braddick’s scepticism that regional identity and regionalism (which he takes to mean the mobilisation of such identities for political purposes) can be found in early modern England. His concerns are based on the fact that potential forms of

1 William Cuningham, The cosmographical glasse: conteinyng the pleasant principals of cosmographie, geographie, hydrographie, or navigation, London 1559. 2 Holinshead, Chronicles, 257. Arguably they remain so. 3 David Rollison, ‘Exploding England: the dialectics of mobility and settlement in early modern England’, SH, xxiv (1999), 3–4.

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identity are likely to have been ‘transactional and situational’, and therefore indiscernible through ‘institutional structures’.4 It is precisely because these were expressed in terms of county (or parish or hundred, for those further down the social scale), not region, that problems remain. Broader configurations, such as the Council of the North, and the roughly coterminous ‘province’ or archbishopric of York, might be instructive about northern, but not specifically north-eastern, identities. The only institution of a regional nature in the northeastern parts was the diocese of Durham. Yet, as an ecclesiastical organisation, its personnel was composed of clerics, who were far less likely than their secular counterparts to be composed entirely of native north-easterners, with concomitant implications for their embracing a sense of identity predicated on their physical location. Moreover, Durham, as a diocese, and a county, and a palatinate, and a city, embraced a truly kaleidoscopic range of identities. Its bishop, who was the temporal and administrative overlord of the city, county and palatinate, and the spiritual leader of both counties Durham and Northumberland, personified this ambiguity, which became further complicated when he was serving as the lord lieutenant of the two counties. The potential for conflict between the clerical community and the indigenous county officers, not least in that the former might represent a challenge to the latter’s sense of being a discrete and coherent entity, was never seriously realised, largely because they were functioning in different spheres. Where such coherence was contested was when outside influences were introduced into the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom in direct contention with its native elites. Thomas Sutton’s failure to capitalise on the lucrative coal leases he had negotiated with the queen was a consequence of his being an interloper into Newcastle’s affairs. Lord Eure’s dismal experience of trying to govern the middle march was a direct result of his inability to identify with the area, relying instead on support from outside the region. In these instances, the ‘encounter theories’ – that definitions of identity through differences from ‘others’ can intensify a sense of commonality – appear to have been operating in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. Yet the argument that no single model of ‘social belonging’ is entirely applicable to any community5 is similarly demonstrated in the fact that the Northumberland gentry had been instrumental in the downfall of Sir John Forster, and thereby contributed to Eure’s advancement. In other words, this attests to the existence of more nuanced social, as well as political, spaces in England’s north-eastern corner, which were subtler than mere hostility to outsiders. Although local governors represented the interests of their county or town, their shared concerns were with a very narrow section of the individuals that they governed. Justices of the peace, aldermen and deputy lieutenants were exercised by the need to maintain law and order and keep the populace at large

4 5

Braddick, ‘Elite formation and state formation’, September 2004 colloquium. See, for example, Sahlins, Boundaries, 110–13; and above, Chapter 1. 164

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under their control, while members of parliament represented directly the interests of only a very limited electorate. In particular, county officers in both Durham and Northumberland were determined to retain the favourable financial terms they enjoyed with central government, and they strenuously endeavoured to defend their exemption from contributing to national levies, by exploiting the exceptional character of their counties. Even so, these fiscal concessions, together with the unusual conditions obtaining there, were not peculiar to the north-eastern counties, for they were shared by the other northern counties of Westmorland and Cumberland. At the same time, members of the urban oligarchies were equally bent on preserving their privileges, especially those that were specific to Newcastle – such as those possessed by the hostmen, merchant adventurers and the grand lessees – against encroachments from less advantaged entrepreneurs on Tyneside and Wearside or from further afield. Thus, the overriding considerations of the elites in the north-eastern parts, like their counterparts throughout the rest of the kingdom, were sectional rather than territorial, and tended to have more in common with those of a similar social and economic standing rather than with immediate neighbours. For example, the grand lessees of Newcastle preferred to secure mutually advantageous trading arrangements with Londoners who had similar interests to their own, rather than reach any kind of accommodation with their close commercial rivals within the town. The distinction between physical and social or cultural spaces, posited in the introductory chapter as a convenient tool to probe identities in the temporal and spatial setting of this book, is not that easily manipulated. Indeed, the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries turn out to be just another hall of distorting mirrors of the kind that historians regularly seem to find themselves in. In furthering their political and commercial interests, the north-eastern elites were driven by multifarious considerations. While, at a more personal level, social and physical factors also were inextricably confused. Contrary to the contention that marriage alliances forged by the elites of the north-eastern counties demonstrated their innate conservatism, detailed study has revealed that they were more geographically exogamous than has traditionally been held. This might be a significant gauge of attachment to their physical space, especially if there was a regional bias in their choice of brides. However, there were relatively few marriages contracted between the county families of Durham and those of Northumberland, with gentlemen from Durham twice as likely to choose a bride from Yorkshire as from Northumberland. There were even fewer marriages between those from Newcastle and the gentry of either county, all of which makes for a rather restricted synthesis in the north-eastern reaches of the realm. It would seem that monitoring marriage patterns is of limited value in exposing any sense of regional identity amongst the elites of the northeastern parts. On the other hand, matrimonial arrangements made by both county and urban elites in the north-eastern counties and Newcastle were as anthropologically endogamous as those contracted elsewhere in the kingdom. 165

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For they were overwhelmingly formed within circumscribed social parameters between those of a quite distinct caste. In seeking motives for choice of marriage partner based on the physical, the social emerges as the dominant motivating factor. Exogenous marriages do reveal a gendered difference in identity grounded in physical space, however; for wives had to recalibrate their territorial affiliations upon marriage. But, unlike their husbands, whose willingness to serve their county in an administrative capacity could be a measure of identification with either Durham, Northumberland or Newcastle, there is no similar basis upon which to assess women’s relationships with their new locality. The clearest demonstration of women identifying with their adopted location was where they chose to have their mortal remains interred. The limited records suggest this was invariably with their marriage partners. In turn, this reflected the wishes of their husbands, who, in the much more abundant records, almost unanimously expressed a desire to be buried in their local parish church. Identification with physical space ultimately tended to be parochial, rather than regional. But other, less tangible factors were also at work. For the Middletons, father and son, in the confusing years following the Reformation, it was the manner, rather than the place, of their burial that was more important. Linked to this were decisions regarding enduring legacies of a material kind. These were governed by the space that one had touched during one’s lifetime, but were as likely to be motivated by social and personal matters as geographically driven. Bequests might even cross international boundaries, such as that made by Henry Riddell to include his German hosts. But the correlation between physical and social spaces became most marked when provision was made to commemorate an individual, for a physical artefact represented a social memory. This was an extension of the articulation of ‘imagined’ identity through the convention of language, which, paradoxically, transformed it into a tangible ‘reality’.6 Thus, another convenient dichotomy must be treated with circumspection: the demarcation between the real and imagined, together with the physical and social, was more complex and needs to be approached with greater subtlety. A survey of marriage settlements reveals similarly complicated and entangled contradictions. Ostensibly of a purely territorial nature, they also reveal additional concerns that were brought to bear by those drawing them up. For they were concluded across counties, which were as likely to include Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as Durham and Northumberland, while witnesses to such contracts were chosen according to personal rather than geographical considerations. Furthering the interests of their families within their socio-economic caste was quite clearly the dominant factor in the decision-making processes of both the county gentry and the urban oligarchs. This was replicated in other property dealings conducted by

6

See above, Chapter 1. 166

CONCLUSION

the north-eastern elites. These were transactions that made the most visible impression in the records, suggesting that land, as a manifestation of their physical space at its most explicit, was the elites’ overriding regard. The fact that there is little evidence of estates transferred beyond Northumberland and Durham by their native gentry might be construed as denoting a close affinity with their material world, or real estate. However, it was every bit as likely to have been motivated by the desire to maintain their social standing, rather than demonstrating a close attachment to their physical space per se. The correlation can be further discerned in the way in which the county gentry designated themselves by their title, but identified themselves by their place of residence. The north-eastern elites’ efforts at maintaining or furthering their position were made against the background of the very particular nature of the physical and social space that they occupied. This was regularly reinforced by reports to central government about conditions in the north-eastern confines of the kingdom, which were almost consistently pessimistic. Emphasising the particularly lawless nature of the North East, and the laxity of its elites in executing their administrative obligations and duties, they concentrated on their inability, or unwillingness, to deal with the abiding threat posed by the rieving surnames in the uplands of the north-eastern counties. This was despite the fact that the records clearly show that the counties of Durham and Northumberland were comparable to other English counties regarding levels of crime, and the performance of a fair proportion of their county administrators was exemplary. Yet these negative accounts were as likely to come from the elites themselves, who deliberately manufactured the gloomy image of the two counties, not only to maintain the favourable financial arrangements they enjoyed with the crown, but also to excuse possible failures on their part as county officers. This relationship with central government, which was predicated on partial (or even mis-) information, was entirely dependent on its remoteness from the capital. Burghley, especially, was conscious of this, as his lists of the principal gentlemen and heavily annotated maps of the area testify. But such reports also presented a monochrome picture of a part of the kingdom that was portrayed as uniformly grim – a sweeping impression that seems to have been widely and unquestioningly accepted. Some time early in 1597, Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Part I was first performed.7 It concerned the rebellion against Henry IV by his one-time allies, including Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. Against this were set their two sons, as protagonist and antagonist. Their juxtaposing dispositions were introduced to the audience by the king, thus: Harry ‘Hotspur’ Percy was ‘a son who is the theme of honour’s tongue’, whereas, by contrast, ‘riot and dishonour stain the brow of my young Harry’, Prince Hal.8 Hotspur had a reputation as 7

It was entered on the Stationers’ Register in February 1598. See King Henry IV, Part I, ed. David Scott Kaston, Arden Shakespeare, London 2002, 76. 8 Henry IV, Part I, Act I, scene i. 167

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a proven warrior, but, having rebelled against his king, he was killed on the battlefield, paradoxically, by the feckless Hal, transformed into responsible prince. On one level, the play reflected contemporary concerns and perceptions about the North, whose perfidious inhabitants posed an abiding threat to legitimate authority. But this was a generic North, which, from a southern perspective, was rather vaguely and imprecisely defined as ‘the remnant northward lying off from Trent’.9 Notwithstanding the ramifications of the pejorative ‘remnant’, Shakespeare’s northern territories otherwise were indeterminately conceived, while his (southern) audiences were unlikely to be much exercised by their exact location or composition. It was a much more specific landscape, albeit occupied by the same key players, that the courtly soldier Sir Philip Sidney had celebrated two years previously in ‘the olde song of Percy and Duglas’, the border ballad that saluted Henry Percy’s martial prowess against the Scots. In the wider popular imagination, the North may have been an ill-defined but homogeneous part of the kingdom, but its people had a very clear identity. They had long been marked by their bellicosity, which reputation was appropriated by that ostensibly pan-northern enterprise earlier in the sixteenth century, the Pilgrimage of Grace.10 William Camden’s more systematic and dispassionate description of the northern reaches of the kingdom, at the end of the century, contended that it was the ethnic character of Northumberland, in particular, that had formed the warlike spirit of its people: a spirit embodied by Shakespeare in his Hotspur. These representations coincided almost exactly with the time when central government was criticising that part of the kingdom for being insufficiently militarised. The so-called ‘decay of service’ on the borders was consistently a cause for reproach, along with further complaints about their perceived lawlessness. This general impression of the North, which was also regarded as backward and uncivil, ultimately was employed to justify the crown’s centralising policies,11 which impacted badly on the north-eastern counties. The composition of the commissions that were regularly empanelled to look into deficiencies in those parts reflected the government’s aims, as natives of Durham and Northumberland increasingly were excluded from them. This carried with it another inherent contradiction. For, on the one hand, the north-eastern confines of the kingdom were being criticised for being turbulent, untamed, and a threat to the health of the body politic; on the other, its natural governors were regarded as ineffectual, and unfit to determine its own affairs. Yet Westminster’s determination to exert 9

These were the parts that Hotspur expected to be given in Act III, scene i. For a further discussion of this, see Matthew Holford, ‘Being northern in later medieval England: cultural identity and political change’, September 2004 colloquium. 11 These were precisely the arguments being propounded to defend the crown’s brutality against the Irish. In 1596 Edmund Spenser produced his treatise called A view from the present state of Ireland, offering a detailed strategy to ‘shock and awe’ the Irish by famine and transplantation. 10

168

CONCLUSION

greater control over those parts was also a tacit acknowledgement of their distinctiveness or separateness, which carried with it the potential for independent action that must be curbed, if not suppressed. It has been comprehensively demonstrated that the border was often more imaginary than real to native inhabitants, and that border law was regularly violated or ignored, especially by the elites who lived there and enjoyed close personal relations with their Scottish counterparts. But the border was very real to the central authorities and their representatives on the ground, who viewed this cross-border concord with dismay. For example, Huntingdon had maintained that close Anglo-Scottish relations were intrinsic to the ‘decay of service’ on the borders in 1580, and again in 1593, while Sir John Carey was in no doubt that amity between the English and Scots was jeopardising the security of ‘this countrye’, in 1603. This is a clear example of the way in which identities in borderlands can be more complex than in corelands, and of how governments sought to obliterate such identities by stressing national ones.12 Queen Elizabeth’s privy council attempted to achieve this by imposing a national civility on her north-eastern frontier. When their chosen agent for the task, Lord Eure, came to face these complex border identities, together with their peculiar administrative and judicial practices, however, he proved himself quite unequal to fathoming them. He also failed to understand the interactions of regions (or in this case, countries) which exposed their individual identity as well as their inner workings.13 For his own efforts to engage in cross-border concord were a disaster, resulting in his replacement within two years. It was probably no coincidence that this episode coincided with the first performance of Henry IV, Part I. For Percy’s rebellion was set against a background of northern resentment at the crown’s intervention in its affairs. At the end of the sixteenth century this interference was manifest in attempts made to impose a metropolitan civility on the north-eastern corner of England. More worrying was the temporary alliance that had been forged between Percy and Douglas against Henry IV. For there were potential parallels in the late 1590s, when Scotland conceivably might join forces with England’s enemies. The unpredictable and unreliable border zone, as a very particular entity, continued to perplex the central authorities. They retaliated by cracking down on both north-eastern counties; for, ultimately, the governors of the kingdom were constrained by its administrative make-up. Yet the area attracting adverse comment did not correspond neatly to the counties of Northumberland and/or Durham. And, although the border marches (until their abolition) were three distinct administrative sectors, in contemporaries’ eyes they shared many characteristics, especially insofar as they conformed to southerners’ negative, and generalised, prejudices. But it was quite specifically the middle marches, and especially the upland parts of

12 13

Berger, ‘Everywhere a border?’, September 2004 colloquium. According to Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’; and see above, Chapter 1. 169

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Redesdale and Tynedale which extended into county Durham in Weardale and Teesdale, that were causing concern. Moreover, their shared culpability was with Bewcastle and Gisland in the west marches.14 A proclamation issued in 1617, ‘for the better and more peaceable government of the middle shires of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland’15 reiterated that all writs should run in Hexhamshire, North and South Tynedale and Redesdale (as well as Bewcastle), notwithstanding any pretended claims of liberty or franchise they might assert. Thus, the Pennine uplands represented a quite specific subregion in the North. Rather than racial factors determining the militant nature of county Northumberland’s population, it seemed to be the physical landscape, which underlay, and extended beyond, any administrative boundaries, that was of greater significance.16 Superimposed on existing ethnic and topographic distinctions were the rieving clans who occupied the upland parts and preyed upon their neighbours in times of dearth – yet from whom some were barely distinguishable in terms of wealth or influence. All of this makes Phythian-Adams’s reminder, that landscapes, and social interaction, ‘bleed’ from one territory into another,17 especially germane in the north-eastern parts where the physical and social were both blurred and distorted to an unusual extent on account of its peculiar administrative, judicial and social arrangements. Meanwhile, the government’s focus of attention was shifting within the north-eastern parts, expedited by its geological make-up. The enormous growth of coal mining on Tyneside was accompanied by a concomitant increase in migrant workers, not just from the former liberties, but also from further afield, together with the associated problems such rapid population movement brought with it. Given that this was the only part of Northumberland that Camden felt warranted merit, it also introduced another contradictory identity into the north-eastern parts, as the culturally sophisticated Newcastle elites were juxtaposed against its miscreant migrant workforce. Yet even the ‘elite within the elite’, that emerged during the 1580s and 1590s in Newcastle, had proved to be no more amenable to central government, requiring its intervention on several occasions. Both Newcastle and the middle march’s relations with the capital and central government demonstrate how, on occasion, the national interest would coincide with the regional, yet at other times the two might be in conflict, and sometimes different interest groups within the region might be at odds with each other. They also illustrate the contention that

14

See, for example, SP 58/30/117. Stuart proclamations, 374–81. This enlarged a law made in 1495. 16 See, for instance, Brian K. Roberts, Landscapes of settlement, prehistory to the present, London 1996, 58, fig. 3.8: ‘Landscapes and territories’. Both the physical regions and the types of landscape bisect the north-eastern parts of England, north to south, and extend into the north-western parts. 17 Phythian-Adams, ‘Differentiating provincial societies in English history’. 15

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‘spatial structures are compounded of many wavelengths, some of which do and some of which do not mesh together’.18 In March 1603 the receiver was re-tuned. With the union of the crowns, another dimension was added to the multiplicity of real and imagined identities and physical and social spaces in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century north-eastern parts of the kingdom. Tudor policy, first discernible under Henry VII, and intensified by Elizabeth, has traditionally been regarded as having drawn the claws of the local magnates who had developed into monstrous ‘overmighty subjects’. Since then it has been argued that the borders were far better governed and more efficiently defended in the Lancastrian years, especially during the minority of Henry VI. The Scots and English were encouraged to resolve their own problems, and generally did so more peacefully and effectively than when Westminster was involved.19 King James, with his innate self-confidence, coupled with personal experience of conditions obtaining on the borders, was able, at a stroke, to restore this pre-Tudor approach of devolution. But, while the native Northumberland gentry settled back into senior positions in local government, their representatives in parliament, together with their urban counterparts, displayed a marked lack of interest in the process of dissolving the border throughout most of the first three sessions of the 1604 parliament. This was most likely to have been for the simple reason that the borders were indeed more apparent than real, and if the concept of the borders was illusory when it was an undeniable political presence before 1603, the consequences of its dissolution were correspondingly inconsequential. On the occasions that the north-eastern members did participate they adopted polarised positions, illustrating the multi-layered and shifting nature of individual or family interests as local considerations superseded wider concerns. This appears to counter the rather stark thesis that a conscious sense of commonality is automatically activated by encounters with others. Instead, it shows how heeding ‘local, communal and oppositional cultures’20 offers a more nuanced interpretation of reactions to union in the north-eastern reaches of the kingdom. Thereafter, the north-eastern parts were gradually brought into the national civil polity, not least insofar as the two counties became part of the fiscal framework of the kingdom, and notwithstanding their strident efforts to resist losing their distinctive privileges. In this, they were joined by the bishop of Durham, at the heart of the bishopric, another of the sub-regions in the north-eastern corner of England. Cutting across all the identities and administrative and topographical boundaries were confessional variations within the diocese of Durham. In many respects, ideological, and especially religious, identities transcend physical,

18 19 20

Hart, ‘The highest form of the geographer’s art’. And see above, Chapter 1. See, for example, Neville, Violence, custom and law; and Pollard, North eastern England. Hudson, ‘Regional and local history’, 13. 171

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cultural and social identities. On the one hand, they can be shared identities that stretch beyond the region and, even, the kingdom. On the other, they can mark a clear sense of distinctiveness within the physical boundaries of a region: a region that, in this instance, was more or less coterminous with the diocese of Durham. As religious identity became increasingly polarised, and further fragmented, with the emergence of varieties of Protestantism, the experiences of the more radical, non-conformist Protestants (or Puritans) and Catholics were a clear exposition of the point that ‘identity is often easier to recognise by its absence than for its presence. Even if they are not sure what they have in common with one another, human groups can define themselves in their opposition to those who are not like themselves.’21 But the subject of religious identities is more complex than a simple dichotomy between Catholic and varieties of Protestant. Detailed study of sentiments across the religious spectrum does little to indicate a marked regional identity grounded in doctrinal stance, except insofar as Protestant non-conformists or adherents to Roman Catholicism found themselves at odds with the central authorities – another example of resistance to the civilising mission of the state. It was once argued that the Catholics formed a distinct group, which carried with it concomitant assumptions that they might also be regarded as a discrete and coherent kind with a very clear sense of identity. Certainly, the men in arms declared their common identity by marching under banners that depicted the ‘five wounds of Christ’ and wearing red crosses, in 1569. However, it would seem that, in respect of ideological and religious considerations, shared northern Catholic identity was between men from Yorkshire and Durham, rather than from Northumberland and Durham. Thus was reflected similar configurations to those governing choice of marriage partner. Later, the dilemma of the ‘archpriest controversy’ exposed deep divisions within the Catholics. Far from representing a monolithic, north-eastern, Catholic stance, they embraced a diversity of opinions which transcended the purely doctrinal – a further example of the fractional nature of allegiances and identities. Non-conforming Protestantism, especially Puritanism, was never part of a coherent movement, either, except in the extent to which it was in conflict with the secular and ecclesiastical authorities. Conditions in the diocese of Durham meant that differences between Puritans and conformist Protestants were eroded, however, which may have lent the area a certain singularity, while a specific Puritan identity in the North, predicated on its oppositional nature, was diluted as a consequence. However, in Newcastle, the antagonistic relationship between certain grand lessees and others – each with unequivocal Puritan leanings – demonstrated not only the complex and shifting factionalism within the citizenry of Newcastle, but also similarly complicated ideological identities as political and commercial issues superseded doctrinal or confessional ones. Meanwhile, in the uplands of both north-eastern counties, a mosaic of

21

Royle, ‘Regions and identities’, 10. 172

CONCLUSION

religious identities had emerged after the Reformation, which followed a pattern of alternation rather than uniformity. Thus, Bossy was able to define the area dale by dale on his denominational map, which, by and large, reflected the confessional stance of the resident local elites.22 The fluctuating religious complexion of the diocese of Durham, initiated by its bishop, reflected and inspired further shifting identities in the northeastern reaches of the kingdom. For each alteration was accompanied by corresponding readjustments as religious identities continued to be calibrated in reference to their ideological counterparts. It must be concluded, therefore, that religious identities were as varied and manifold in nature as any other identities. A late twentieth-century discussion of historical memory in the North East counselled that one ‘must learn to distinguish the occasions when it suits people in the North-East to assume their religious identities . . . and when it does not’.23 Such advice is no less pertinent for the early modern period. For, in common with the rest of the country, doctrinal differences were rarely the single most important defining feature among any of the elites in the north-eastern portion of the kingdom, despite the best efforts of some historians to suggest as much. Even those at the extremes of the religious spectrum were never excluded from the normal processes that were available to their fellow Englishmen. As in other respects, familial networks, or commercial concerns, were far more important and generally overrode confessional considerations. Regional identities and consciousness developed in nineteenth-century Europe in pace with and in response to growing centralisation.24 It has been suggested, too, that ‘Northumbria’ re-invented itself, at the same time.25 Yet those processes were anticipated by several centuries in England’s north-eastern parts. Challenges occasioned by state formation in the early modern period had resulted in efforts to emphasise its distinctiveness through its own peculiar traditions. The troubled years of the 1590s precipitated another upsurge in commemoration of its adopted saint, Cuthbert, who was portrayed as the defining spirit of the north-eastern diocese. With religion no longer a binding force, as even confessional divisions were further fragmented internally, other, non-religious shibboleths were also invoked. The heroic secular past was conjured up through ballads, in particular the battle of Otterburn, which was thereafter memorialised to stress ‘the role of localism in regions where strong and necessary outside influences and interventions were regarded

22

Bossy, The English Catholic community, 88–9. Bill Williamson, ‘Living the past differently: historical memory in the north east’, in Colls and Lancaster, Geordies, 150. 24 See above, Chapter 1. A number of the papers read at the September 2004 colloquium dealt with this. 25 McCord, ‘The regional identity of north-east England’; Colls, ‘Born-again Geordies’, in Colls and Lancaster, Geordies. 23

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ambivalently’.26 Such localism was reflected in the cultural sub-regions that emerge from this study of Northumberland and Durham, which transcended administrative divisions, and reflected their quite distinct identities. Thus, St Cuthbert and all that his cult represented was most closely associated with the bishopric, while the martial exploits celebrated in the border ballads encapsulated a specific society with its idiosyncratic characteristics predicated on its frontier location. Yet these identities were also subject to modification, even within the period covered by this book. For example, with the effective disappearance of the border in 1603, Northumberland and Durham ‘were freed to look inwards, perhaps even to reinvent themselves’. 27 Border ballads represented not one but two discrete traditions: the one extolling its chivalric heroes, the other perpetuating a way of life, and an exceptionally potent sense of local identity, peculiar to the riding surnames on the borders, feeling marginalised by the increasingly vigorous social and cultural domination by Newcastle. That city, meanwhile, was embracing influences from far beyond the north-eastern confines of the kingdom. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the great territorial magnates that once dominated the north-eastern counties of England were replaced not only by the county gentry but also by urban elites, especially those of Newcastle who capitalised on its spectacular growth in the same period. With the north-eastern coal industry ‘utterly different’ from elsewhere in England,28 those who prospered most by it, its coal-owning elite in Newcastle, became increasingly aware of their remarkableness, which, in turn, led to their asserting themselves confidently upon the town’s hinterland. Hence, they offered another ‘north-eastern identity’ in addition to the secular warrior and spiritual saint who represented the traditional, and highly provincial, embodiment of the north-eastern counties and/or the diocese. Theirs was a sophisticated, as well as commercially astute, identity that was being formed in relation to the capital, through social, economic and cultural associations. Thus, another identity was superimposed onto existing consciousnesses, with the potential, at one and the same time, to dilute and enrich the mix of the north-eastern corner of England. This would have been felt most strongly among the inter-connected urban and rural elites whose lives traversed these larger spheres. But, although this Newcastle-focused identity was to subsume, it never entirely erased, the multiplicity of sub-regional identities detected throughout this book, when the process of ‘the re-making of the North East’ took shape in later centuries.

26 27 28

Anthony Goodman, ‘Introduction’, in Goodman and Tuck, War and border societies, 23. Wrightson, ‘Elements of life’. Levine and Wrightson, The making of an industrial society, 25. 174

Appendix Elites of and in the north-eastern counties of England

Family names and places of residence: compiled principally from contemporary heralds’ visitations and lists of office holders. Alder Anderson Armeror Aynesley Barnes Barnes Bates Baynbrigge Beadnell Bell Bellasis Bellingham Billingham Blackett Blakiston Blenkinsop Booth Boothe Bower Bowes Bowes Brabant Brackenby Bradford Brandling Brown Bulmer

of Alnwick (Northumberland) of Newcastle and Haswell (Durham) of Belford (Northumberland) of Shaftoe (Northumberland) of Bedborne (Durham) of Durham of Holywell/Halliwell (Northumberland) of Snotterton, Wheteley Hill and Freer House (Durham) of Lemmington (Northumberland) of Bellasis (Northumberland) of Morton, Henknoll, Ludworth and Great Haswell (Durham) of Bellingham (Northumberland) of Crook Hall (Durham) of Woodcrofte (Durham) of Blakiston, Gibside, Sadbery, Seaton, Thornton Hall and Byrtley (Durham) of Bellister (Northumberland) of Silksworth (Durham) of Old Durham of Lathom (Lancashire) and Oxenfield of Newcastle and Thornton (Northumberland) of Streatlam and Biddick (Durham) of Pedgebank and Brancepeth (Durham) of Denton and Selaby (Durham) of Bradford (Northumberland) of Felling (Durham), Gosforth and Alnwick (Northumberland) of Hogesden (Middlesex) and Berwick (Northumberland) of Tursdale (Durham) 175

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Bunny Burrel Burton Butler Button Byerley Calverley Carey Carnaby Carr Carr Chamber Chapman Charlton Chaytor Clavering Clavering Claxton Clennell Clopton Cole Collingwood Colmore Comyn Constable Conyers Cooper Cramlington Craster Darcey Dawson Delaval Dethick Dodsworth Downes Dudley Eden Elstob Errington Ewbanke

of Ryton (Durham) of Howtel (Northumberland) of Durham of Bishop Auckland (Durham) of Alton Priors (Wiltshire) of Pickhall (Durham) of Calverley (Yorkshire) and Littleburn (Durham) of Berwick, Morpeth and Widdrington of Halton, Aydon and Langley (Northumberland) of Ford Castle, Lesbury, Woddall and Benwell Tower (Northumberland) of Newcastle of Cleadon (Durham) of Newcastle of Hesleyside (Northumberland) of Butterby (Durham) of Axwell (Durham) of Callaly (Northumberland) of Wynyard, Old Park and Nettlesworth (Durham) of Clennell (Northumberland) of Sledwick (Durham) of Gateshead and Branspeth (Durham) of Eslington, Great Ryle and Little Ryle (Northumberland) of Durham of Durham of Chopwell (Durham) of Sockburne, Layton and Horden (Durham) of Durham of Newsham (Northumberland) of Craster (Northumberland) of Witton (Durham) of Unthanke (Durham) of Seaton Delaval and Dissington (Northumberland) of Greetham Hospital (Cumberland) and Amerstone (Durham) of Halnaby Grange (Yorkshire) and Stranton (Durham) of Evenwood (Durham) of Newcastle and Chopwell (Northumberland) of West Aukland (Durham) of Foxton (Durham) of Denton, Errington, Hirst, Ponteland and Howden (Northumberland) of Durham 176

APPENDIX

Featherstonehaugh Featherstonehaugh Felton Fenwick Forcer Forster Forster Freville Fulthorpe Garnet Garnett Garth Gawdy Gifford Gill Gray Haggerston Hall Halliman Haslerigg Heath Hebborne Hebburn Hedworth Heron Heron Hilliard Hilton Hodgson Horsley Hutchinson Hutton Jackson Jackson James Jenison Jenison Johnson Kendall

of Featherstonehaugh (Northumberland) of Stanhope (Durham) of Great Felton (Northumberland) of Wallington, Meldon, Brinkburn, East Heddon, Longshaws, Butterlaw and Stanton (Northumberland) of Kelloe and Harbour House (Durham) of Durham of Adderstone, Brunton, Bamburgh, Tughall, Newham and Fleetham (Northumberland) of Hardwick and Bishop Middleham (Durham) of Tunstall (Durham) of Buckton and Kyloe (Northumberland) of Egglescliffe (Durham) of Headlam (Durham) of Bassingbourne Gawdy (Norfolk) of Darlington (Durham) of Durham and Haughton (Durham) of Chillingham, Horton, Morpeth and Kyloe (Northumberland) of Haggerston (Northumberland) of Birtley and Consett (Durham) of Lumley (Durham) of Haslerigg and Swarland (Northumberland) of Kepier (Durham) of Shotton (Durham) of Hepburn (Northumberland) of Harraton (Durham) of East Thickley (Durham) of Chipchase and Bockenfield (Northumberland) of Durham of Hilton Castle (Durham) of Newcastle and Hebburn (Durham) of Scranwood, Milburne Grange and Horsley (Northumberland) of Durham of Durham, Houghton-le-Spring and Hunwick (Durham) of Harraton (Durham) of Berwick (Northumberland) of Durham of Walworth (Durham) of Newcastle of Twissell (Durham) of Thorpe Thewles (Durham) 177

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Kennet Killinghall Killingworth Lambton Lawson Lawson Layton Lee Lewson Liddell Lightfoot Lilburne Lisle Lorraine Maddison Madison Maire Manners Marche Marshall Martin Matthew Middleton Middleton Millot Mitford Mitford Morgan Morton Muschamp Ogle Ord Parkinson Pemberton Percy Pilkington Place Proctor Punshon Radcliffe

of Coxhow (Durham) of Middleton St George (Durham) of Killingworth (Northumberland) of Lambton (Durham) of Newcastle and Usworth (Durham) of Cramlington (Northumberland) [Thomas, custos rotulorum] of Layton of Fishburne (Durham) of Newcastle of Newcastle and Ravensworth Castle (Durham) of Greystones (Durham) of Thickley Punchardon (Durham) of Felton and Newton-on-the-Moor (Northumberland) of Kirkharle (Northumberland) of Newcastle and Unthanke Hall (Durham) of Newcastle of Durham and Hardwick Hall (Durham) of Cheswick (Northumberland) of Redworth (Durham) of Newcastle, Denton and Selaby (Durham) of Durham of Durham of Silksworth and Barnard Castle (Durham) of Belsay (Northumberland) of Whitehill (Durham) of Newcastle of Mitford and Seghill (Northumberland) of Mill-houses (Durham) of Berwick and Murton (Northumberland) of Barmoor (Northumberland) of Bothal, Causey Park, Burradon, Bebside, Tritlington and Ogle Castle (Northumberland) of Fenwick (Norhamshire), Weetwood (Northumberland) and Fishburn (Durham) of Morpeth (Northumberland) of Aislaby (Durham) of Alnwick (Northumberland) of Durham of Halnaby (Richmondshie) and Dinsdale (Durham) of Shawdon (Northumberland) of West Herrington (Durham) of Cartington, Dilston and Blanchland (Northumberland) 178

APPENDIX

Raymes Read Reveley Richardson Riddell Ridley Roddam Salkeld Salvin Sanderson Scurfield/ Scruteville Selby Selby Shaftoe Shaftoe Skepper Smith Strother Surtees Swift Swinburne Swinhoe Swynburne Tailboys Talbot Tempest Thirkeld Thirlwall Thomlinson Thornton Tonge Trollope Trotter Tunstall Ward Ward Weetwood Wetwang Wharton

of Shortflatt (Northumberland) of the Close House (Newcastle), Houghton, Heddon on the Wall, Holy Island and Fenham (Northumberland) of Ancroft (Northumberland) of Durham of Newcastle and Gateshead of Willimontswick and Westwood (Northumberland) of Roddam and Little Houghton (Northumberland) of Hulne Park (Northumberland) of Croxdale (Durham) of Newcastle and Brancepeth (Durham) of Kibblesworth (Durham) of Newcastle, Shortflatt and Winlaton (Durham) of Biddleston, Twizel, Branxton, Pawston and Weetwood (Northumberland) and Ightham Mote (Kent) of Swalwell and Tanfield Lea (Durham) of Bavington (Northumberland) of Durham of Durham of Fawberry and Kirknewton (Northumberland) of Durham, Newcastle and Ravensworth (Durham) of Sedgefield (Durham) of Edlington and Capheaton (Northumberland) of Cornhill and Goswick (Northumberland) of Wylam (Northumberland) of Thornton Hall (Durham) of Ogle Castle (Northumberland) of Stella (Durham) of Evenwood (Durham) of Thirlwall (Northumberland) of Gateshead (Durham) of Netherwitton (Northumberland) of West Thickley (Durham) of Thornley (Durham) of Helmdon (Durham) of Stockton, Haughton and Coathan Mundeville (Durham) of Bishop Middleham (Durham) of Bowes and Trimdon (Durham) of Weetwood (Northumberland) of Dunstan (Northumberland) of Yorkshire and Wingate Grange (Durham) 179

NORTH-EAST ENGLAND, 1569–1625

Whittingham Widdrington Wilkinson Wilson Wrenn Wright Wycliffe

of Durham of Widdrington, Swinburne, Plessey, Trewitt and Cartington (Northumberland) of Harpley and Ferryhill (Durham) of Brancepeth, Gateshead and Lumley Castle (Durham) of Binchester (Durham) of Durham of Offerton (Durham)

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200

Index Abbot, George, archbishop 131(n67) Act for the Confirmation of the Attainders of the Earl of Westmorland, Earl of Northumberland and others (1569) 49–50 Act of Resumption (1536) 49 Agrippa, Menenius 99 Ainsworth, Peter 6(n22) Alfred, king 155 All Saints’ church (Newcastle) 130 Allan, Robert Henry 142(n113) Allen, Cardinal 123 Allgood family 31(n41) Alnwick 1, 59, 111 Alnwick Castle 92, 138 The ancient rites, and monuments, of the monastical and cathedral church of Durham ... (J. Davies) 148 Anderson, Benedict 6 Anderson, J.J. 160(n77) Anderson family 35, 36; Bertram 39, 53; Sir Henry, Jr 29, 53, 54, 55, 59, 61, 62, 63, 75; Sir Henry, Sr 29, 38, 39, 53, 61, 62, 129, 132, 136, 138 antiquarians 3, 143, 148–9, 152–3, 155–7 Apologia Cardinalis Bellarmini Iure Principum 124 ‘Apologie for Poetrie’ (Sidney, 1595) 144 Applegate, Celia 6(n21) Apsley family, Sir Allen 31, 32; William 32 Archer, Ian W. 106, 106(n53), 132(n73) Aristophanes 118 Arminians 56, 133–5 Armstrong family 145 Ashmole, Elias 148 Ashton, Robert 32(n48) Atlas of England and Wales (Saxton, 1576) 156, 157 Aubrey, John 148 Auckland St Andrew 120 Austen, Jane 25 Aveling, Hugh 140(n107) Averell, William 98, 99(n21)

Axwell 29, 35 Azores 79 Baildon, W.P. 50(n38) Bain, Joseph 74(n39) Baker, Alan R.H. 5, 42(n98) Ball, John 25(n20) ballads 20, 143, 144–7 Bamburgh Castle 67 Barber, Sarah 44(n3) Barmoor 59 Barnard, Mary 113 Barnard Castle 60 Barnes, John 62 Barnes, Richard, bishop of Durham 62, 63, 121 Barry, Jonathan 35(n560), 109(n69), 161(n85) Bartholomew, Lord 160 Bartlett, Robert 92(n108) Barton, T.F. 91(n13) Bateson, E. 58(n75), 72(n29), 129(n53) Bateson, Mary 127(n44, n45) ‘The battle of Otterburn’ 144, 146 Beaufort, Lady Margaret 112 Beaumont, judge 71 Beckinsale, B.W. 15 Bede, Venerable 20, 151(and n38) Bedford, earl of 48, 67, 71 Bedfordshire 114 Bedlington 12 Bellarmine, Cardinal 124 Bellasis family: Brian 40; Margery 40, 42, 154; Richard 27, 40, 62–3(and n99); Sir Rowland 154; Sir William 56, 62 Belsay (Northumberland) 30, 58 Benedictine monks 123–4 Berger, Stefan 14, 169(n12) Berwick 1, 14(n60), 18, 36, 38, 50, 54, 55, 81, 83, 87, 90, 108, 111, 115, 127(n46), 128 Berwick, Treaty of (1560) 76 Berwick Castle 67, 72 Berwickhall (Lancashire) 30 201

INDEX Bewcastle 64, 170 Biddick 30 Binchester 62 Bindloss, Dorothy 30 Bindloss, Sir Robert 30 Birchfield 30 Birkhead family: Daniel 131, 135, 140; George 123, 124, 125, 140; Gerard 140; Isabel 124(n30) Bishop Auckland 27, 62 black acts 127 Blackett family 31(n41) Blackfriars (London) 27 Blackwell, George 123 Blythe 105 Bodley, Thomas 145 Bold, Alan 144(n7) Bolton (Wensleydale) 61 Bonham family: Charles 34; Dorothy 34 The book called the Governor (Elyot) 23–4 ‘A Book of the Survey of Certaine Border Lands belonging to the Crowne of England . . .’ (1604) 93 borders 13, 169, 171; decline in defences 66–9; and formation of identity 14; official/unofficial relations 81; and outlaws/borderers distinction 69; policing the frontier 66–82; political 13–14; proposed dissolution of 18; and Scottish incursions 68–9, 89; setting up of commission 18–19; survey of 93; and trading patterns/social patterns 13; transformation from international to heartland 2; and union of the crowns 18–19 Borough, William 100 Bossy, John 118(n4), 125, 173 Boston (Lincolnshire) 160 Bothal Castle 57 boundaries 116; as borders or heartlands 13; complexity/fluidity of 14; and death of James 11; geographical/spatial 12–14; and rising of northern earls 11; and social space 14; temporal 11–12; and union of the crowns 11–12 Bourne, Henry 158(n74) Bowes family 28, 30, 50(n36); George 30; Dame Katherine 124(n33); Robert 64, 74(n39); Sir George 50, 60; Sir Talbot 30, 62; Sir William 75, 76(n45), 77, 99 Bowyer, Robert 87(n89) Boyle, J.R. 39(n83, n85) Braddick, Michael J. 9(n42, n43), 17(n72), 21(n77), 44, 52, 163

Bradley 124(n33) Bradshaw, Brendan 44(n2), 83(n71) Brancepeth 31(n41), 36, 120, 137 Brandling family 29; Sir Francis 29, 55, 113; Robert 29, 36, 39; Ursula 29, 42 Brandon 140 Branxton 58, 59 Brazil 84 Brereton, Sir William 40 Bridlington Priory (north Yorkshire) 32 Brigantes 155–6 Bright, Richard 32 Bristol 9, 87, 101(n31), 160 Britannia (Camden) 143, 155–7 Britnell, Richard Hugh 12(n51) Brooks, Christopher W. 35(n560), 109(n69) Brooks, George 139 Brooks, Henry 139 Brown, Keith M. 94(n3), 96(n8) Browne, John 35, 80 Bruce, John 1(n2), 2(n4) Bryson, Anna 96(n11), 110(n77), 113(n87) Buchanan, George 96 Buckinghamshire 29, 72 Burghley, Lord see Cecil, William Burke, Peter 96(n10), 97(n16), 161(n85) Butlin, R.A. 5, 10 Butterby 27, 41, 152 Bywell 92, 137 Calais 37 Caledonians 156 Calkin, C.W. 67(n3) Callaly 111 Calverley family: Sir John 60(and n86), 61, 63, 152(and n42); Sir Thomas 29, 49(and n30), 60(and n88), 64; Sir William 152 Calvin, John 120, 126 Calvinists 20, 131 Cambridge 59, 110, 160 Cambridge University 111–13, 131, 157 Camden, William 20, 108, 124, 143, 152, 155–7, 168, 170 Camden Society 155 Canterbury 126 Capheaton 48 Carey family 53; Henry, Lord Hunsdon 14(and n60), 46, 50, 53, 61, 63, 67(n7), 68, 69, 81, 122, 129; Sir John 1, 78, 169; Sir Robert 1, 53, 77, 79, 81–2, 136, 145; William 53 202

INDEX Carley, James P. 148(n21) Carlisle 51, 83, 91 Carnaby family 48 Carr family 139; William 29, 39 Carr-Ellison family 31(n41) Castle 115 Castle Eden 140 Catholics 15, 19–20, 41, 72, 73, 76, 90–1, 92, 102, 172; activities against 130; and the Benedictines 123–4; church papists 117; divisions within 172; and familial associations/loyalty 138–41; as identifiable community 117–18; identities 118–25; and oath of allegiance 123–4; radical/moderate 117; recusants 72, 117, 136–7, 137; restoration of church 120–1; rifts in 117; support for northern rising 118–23 Cawsley (Cheshire) 32 Cecil family: Robert, earl of Salisbury 1, 51, 61, 79, 84, 89, 91, 92, 137, 139; William, Lord Burghley 38, 47, 48(and n25, n26), 50, 51, 55, 62, 68, 69, 72–3, 74, 76, 77, 80, 82, 93, 99, 102, 103, 104, 121, 129, 138, 139, 157, 167 Cessford 79 Chapman family 35; Henry 87, 102; Oswald 39 Charles I 36, 65 Charlton family 65; Edward 65; William 65 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Reeve’s Tale 107, 112 Chaytor family: Christopher 27, 41; Thomas 27, 141, 152 Cheshire 23, 26, 31, 34, 114 Chester 127, 128, 160 Chester-le-Street 120, 149, 153 Child, Francis James 144 Chillingham (Northumberland) 30, 42, 53, 55, 59, 78, 113 Chipchase 68 Chollerton 32, 33 Chomley, Henry 135 Chopwell 48 Christine de Pisan 28 Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (Holinshead, 1576) 155, 163 civil society: and analogy of ailing body politic 98–100, 105–6; assumptions concerning Newcastle 100–5; and centre/periphery tensions 114–15; and civic pride 21; and conflict between urban/rural elites 107–9; and crime 106–7; and education 110–14;

emergence of 94; negative impressions 94–5, 97–100, 114–16; Roman view 97; and sociability 109–10; and the Tudors 94; understanding of 96–7 Civil War 26 Clark, Peter 109(n72), 161 Clarke, Gabriel 131, 133 Clavering family 31(n41), 35; James 29, 36(n70); Sir John 29, 58–9(n80); Robert 111; William 41 Claxton, William 140, 143(and n2), 148, 152 Clervaux family 26; Elizabeth 27; William 27 Cleveland 6 Cliffe, J.T. 139(n105) Clifford family: Francis, 4th earl of Cumberland 90, 91, 93; George, 3rd earl of Cumberland 84, 85–6, 88 Clifford’s Inn (London) 33 Clitherow, Margaret 117 coal industry 19, 33, 36–8, 100–4, 105, 164 Cockburn, J.S. 47(n17), 106(n56) Cockermouth Castle 92 Cocklaw 67 Cockle Park (Northumberland) 27, 42 Coel, Thomas 35 Cohen, Anthony P. 6, 10(n49) Cohn, S.K. 128(n51) Coiners, Roger de 62 Cole family 36; Ralph 40 Colemand, O. 37(n72) Colgrave, Bertram 151(n38) Colley, Linda 3, 7(30) Collingwood family 29, 31(n41); Sir Cuthbert 40, 41, 61, 75(n42), 138; Fortuna 61, 138; George 111; Henry 106–7; Luke 107; Oswald 106–7 Collinson, Patrick 109(n67), 126(n40, n41), 127(n48), 128(n50), 155(n55) Colls, Robert 3(n9), 12(n51), 20(n75), 173(n23) Colmore, Clement 29, 60, 61, 75, 77, 113, 133 commissions: border 18–19, 90–3; on the marches 63, 75–7; of oyer and terminer 86; and union of the crowns (1604) 87–90 communities 6, 8–9, 42, 117–18 The complaynte of Scotland (1550) 144 Conference of Regional and Local Historians (CORAL) (1978) 4

203

INDEX Consett 149 Conyers family: Elizabeth 59; Sir George 62; Sir John 59; Sir Ralph 62 Cookson family 31(n41) Cooper, Robert 29, 60 Coquerdale 116 Cornwall 15, 114, 160 Corpus Christi 21; Durham celebrations 159, 161–2; Newcastle cycle of plays 158–60 Cosin, bishop John 134, 147–8(and n24) Cosman, M. 28(n21) Cosmographical glasse (Cuningham, 1559) 163 Coss, Peter 23(n8) Cotton, Sir Robert 87(n89), 124 Council of the North 18, 28, 47, 50, 51–2, 52, 61, 63, 72, 73, 84, 103, 110, 119, 127, 128, 132, 135, 137(n96), 140, 164 Council of Wales 81(n64) county gentry see elites; gentry Court of Honours 23 Coventry 160 Cowper, Thomas 33 Craddock family 31(n41); John 60, 133–4 Cramsie, John 32(n48), 89(n95) Craster, Edward 106, 106–7 Craven, Lord 24, 25 Crewe, Lord 31(n41) crime 106–7, 167 Croft, Sir James 95(n5) Croft-on-Tees (Yorkshire) 26 Cross, Claire 51(n41), 127(n47) Croxdale 48, 124 Croxdale church 141 culture 21; and ballads 143, 144–7; collective memories 144–7; and funeral monuments 153–4; and the legend of St Cuthbert 147–52; and the map-makers 155–7; and the past 143; popular 144; and religious celebrations 158–60; and travelling players 159–61; urban 158–62; variety of 143–4 Cumberland 26, 31, 40, 51, 52, 58(n77), 63, 64, 64(n105), 65, 71, 84, 111, 115, 121(n18), 155, 160, 165, 166, 170 Cumberland, earls of see Clifford, Francis and George Cuningham, William 163 Cust, Richard 8(n37), 121(n22) Cyvil and uncyvile life 109–10 Danzig (Prussia) 41 Darcey, Lord 160

Darcy family 36 Darlington 33, 59, 118(n7) Davies, John 148, 149 Davies, R.R. 44(n1) Davis, Norman 158(n74) Davison, Alexander 35 Defoe, Daniel 24(n18) Delaval family 31(n41), 36, 57, 58; Francis 114; Sir John 58(n79), 64; Sir Ralph 30, 33, 58(and n79), 63, 64, 85, 114, 115, 116, 137; Sir Robert, Jr 33, 64; Sir Robert, Sr 30, 32, 34, 58, 64, 75(n42), 114, 140 Demonstration of discipline 127 Dendy, F.W. 35(n562), 38(n81), 39(n83, n85) Derby, earl of 160 Derbyshire 28, 114 Dethick, Henry 60 Devereaux, Robert, earl of Essex 51(and n43), 79 Devine, T.M. 10(n47) Devon 160 Dickens, A.G. 15 Dobson, George 112 Dobson, R.B. 15, 37(n71), 158(n69) Dodd family 65 Dodgshon, R.A. 10(n44) Donaldson, Gordon 127(n46) Dorset 26, 113, 160 Doubleday, H.A. 61(n90) Douglas, Archibald 146 Doyle, Ian 147, 148(n21), 152(n40) Drewe, judge 71 Du Preez, Peter 133 Dudley, Ambrose 29 Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester 103–4, 126, 132, 160 Dugdale, William 124 Dunbar, earl of 91(and n105) Dunelmians 156 Dunstanburgh Castle 67 Durham: Cathedral 16, 153; city 27, 41; county 3, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34, 45, 51, 143, 164, 166–7, 169; diocese and bishopric 11, 20, 25, 38, 40(n98), 49, 49–50, 52, 54–5, 71, 72, 90, 143, 147–8, 161–2, 164, 171–2; distinctive traditions in 147–52; first inhabitants of 155–6; monuments and social rank in 152–4; palatinate 12, 156, 164; parliamentary representation 54–5; principal residents of 56; Priory 39; University 4(n13), 16 204

INDEX Durham, William 111 Durston, Christopher 126(n38) Dwyer, Susan 27(n30) Eales, Jacqueline 126(n38) East India Company 35 East Malling (Kent) 34 East Newton 27 Eberstone (Yorkshire) 32 Eden Dene 140 Edinburgh 74(n39), 155 Edmund, king 149 education 19; and free schools 110; and universities 110–14 Edward III 153 Egerton, Sir Thomas 50(n38), 91, 136 Eirenarcha (Lambarde) 105 Eldred, John 32 elites 119; burial of 35, 40–1, 42; and civility 96; country-wide connections 43; county gentry 31–5, 36; definition 22; designation/identification of 34–5; economic base of 31–40; and family lineage 25; and the gentry 22–5; geographic links 161; and identity 44–5; and marriage 26–31, 165–6; and posterity 40–3; and regional identity 16–21; and sense of community/sense of class 42; and social relations 25–31; and urban oligarchies 35–40; wills of 40–2; see also gentry Elizabeth I 1, 14(n60), 17, 22, 32, 33, 37, 39, 45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 67, 75, 79, 100, 118, 122, 169, 171 Ellis, Steven G. 13, 14(n58), 17(n71), 44(n3), 46(n14), 94(n1) Ellis, William 37(n74) Ellison, Cuthbert 39 Elyot, Sir Thomas 23 Emsley, K. 60(n89) Eppleden 41 Errington family: Margerie 27; Richard 27, 42; Thomas 81(n61) escuage 89 Eslington (Northumberland) 40, 111, 138, 139(n102) Essex (county) 23(n13), 32, 128 Essex, earl of see Robert Devereaux Etall 106 Ettrick Shepherd see James Hogg Eure family 50(n36); Ralph, Lord 55, 61, 62, 64, 71, 72–5, 76, 77–9, 81–2, 98, 124(n33), 138, 139, 164, 169; Sir

William 47; William, 4th Lord 124(n33) Everitt, Alan 8(n36) Ewbank family: Henry 113; Toby 113 Featherstonehaugh Castle 111 Featherstonehaugh family: Christopher 111; John 61, 63; Ralph 63 Felling (Durham) 55 Fenwick, Sir John 32, 33, 63, 139 Fenwick, Randal 138 Fenwick, Robert 30 Fenwick, Sir William 29, 48, 58, 59, 63, 64, 75(n42), 77, 82 Fenwick family 53, 58, 139 Ferne, John 77 Fincham, Kenneth 49(n31), 52(n47), 55(n59), 101(n31), 130(n61), 131(n66) Fitton, Edward 32 Fleetwood, Sir William 48, 129 Fletcher, Anthony 118(n7), 119(n9) Florence 128(n51) Forcer family 31(n41); Thomas 140, 141 Ford 29 Forster, Ann M.C. 124(n29) Forster family: Sir John 46, 47, 52, 58, 67(n7), 68(n14), 69, 70, 73, 74–6, 77, 81, 97, 98, 122(and n20), 164; Juliana 67(n7) Foster, Andrew 55(n62, n63), 132(n72) Fotton, Sir Edward 34 Foulis, Sir David 81(n64) Fox, Adam 144(n8), 146(n16) Fraser, C.M. 60(n89) ‘The fray o’ Hautwessell’ 145 Freeman, Jane 73(n32), 126(n42) French, H.R. 23(n13), 56(n66) Freville, Sir George 63(and n100) Fuller, Sir Nicholas 89 Fuller, Thomas 16, 40 Galloway, Bruce 54(n55), 83, 86(n87), 87(n90) Garvey, Sir William 33 Gateshead 27, 35, 36, 38, 59, 75, 104, 129 Gee, H. 125(n36) General Bands 84 Geneva 126, 135 gentry: and clerical authority 48–50; county 31–5, 36, 174; as deputy lieutenants 62–3; geographical movement of 56; as governors 23; 205

INDEX gradations of 23–5; and magisterial bench representation 60–3; numbers of 23; and office holding 53–65; qualitative judgements 22–3; see also elites Gibbs, Vicary 61(n90) Gillingham, John 96(n11) Gilpin, Bernard 111(and n79) Gisland 64, 170 Gleason, J.H. 23(n13) Glendale 115 Gloucestershire 33, 160 Glover, Robert 143(n2) Goodman, Anthony 66(n1), 68(n12), 76(n43), 92(n108), 110(n75), 112(n83), 124(n32), 143(n3), 174(n26) Goody, Jack 30(n40) Gosforth 29 Goswick 59 Gouge, William 27 governance 17–18, 168–71; and acquisition of cross-border intelligence 69; and border defences 66–82; centralising policies 18, 19, 80–1, 84, 168–9; clerical/gentry tension 48–50, 56; and community of interest 56; and consolidation of nation state 46–7; and Council of the North 51–2; and criticism of march wardens 72; and hostile laws 86, 89–90; and justices of the peace 56–65; and lawlessness 68–9, 71–3, 75, 85; laws/jurisdictions 70, 71–2; local/central tension 44–5; and marginalisation of authority 45; and the middle shires 82–93; and native/outsider authority 70–1, 79, 80–2, 84; and office holding 53–65; and outsider appointments 18; political situation 45–53; and supposed Scottish enemy 52–3; Tudor 13–14; and war with Ireland 80; and wardens of the marches 46–8 governors 23–4, 53–65, 164–5 Gray, William (writer) 115(n96) Gray family 30, 53; Lady Dorothy 42; Edward 28, 30, 58, 75(n42), 77; Mary 113; Sir Ralph 28, 30, 53, 59, 64, 78, 86, 89; Sir Thomas 53, 63, 64; Sir William 53, 55 Gray’s Inn (London) 59, 62 Great St Bartholomewes (London) 136 Greenwich 82–3 Gregory, Derek 5

Greystone 62 Grinton 32, 33 gunpowder plot 123, 138 Guy, John 117(n1) Gwydir 114 Gyll, John 41 Hales, Charles 84 Hall, John (poet) 149 Hall, John (publisher) 149 Hall family 65, 154 Haltwistle 145 Harbottle Castle 79, 81 Harbourhouses 140 Harding, Vanessa 159(n76) Hardwick 63(100) Harris, Jonathan Gil 99(n20, n21) Harris, Tim 128(n51) Harrison, Brian 96(n10), 97(n16), 161(n85) Hart, John Fraser 5, 171(n18) Harte, John, mayor of London 102 Hartlepool 33 Hartley (place) 32, 36 Hartley, T.E. 99(n22) Harvey, Barbara 68(n12) Hastings family: Sir Francis 90; George, 4th earl of Huntingdon 139; Henry, 3rd earl of Huntingdon 47, 51, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74–5, 76, 77, 78, 90, 126, 127, 128, 132, 138, 139, 160; Walter 139 Haughton Castle 32 Havinden, M.A. 67(n3) Hawarde, John 50(n38) Hawkesell (Yorkshire) 30 Haydon Bridge 31 Hazlitt, W. Carew 107(n62) Heal, Felicity 22, 26, 48(n23), 55(n60), 109(n72), 111(n78), 131(n68) Healy, Simon 86(n87) Hearon, George 32 Heath family 48; John 111 Hebborne, Anthony 63(100) Hebburn 48 Hector, L.C. 68(n12) Hedley family 65 Hedwinstremes 38 Hegg family: Robert 141, 148, 149, 151; Stephen 148 Heighington 120 Helmsley 27 Henknoll 27, 62 Henry III 154 Henry IV 167, 169 206

INDEX Henry VII 171 Henry VIII 46, 112 heraldic visitations (1575, 1615) 16, 23, 143(and n2), 143(n2) Herbert, William 133 Herefordshire 26, 31, 32, 160 Heron, John 68, 69 Hertford, earl of 160 Hertfordshire 106 Hexham 12, 33, 48, 62, 92, 111, 136, 137 Hexham Priory 32, 74 Hexhamshire 68, 170 Hicks, Michael 39(n84), 103 Hill, John 66(n2) Hilton, J.A. 118(n4), 125 Hilton, R.H. 4(n11) Hilton Castle 30, 50(n36) Hilton family 50(n36), 55; Jane 30; Mr 50; Thomas 30; Sir William 63 Hindle, Steve 9 History of the Church of Durham (R. Hegg) 148 Hodgson, Richard 130 Hodgson, William 140 Hodgson family 48 Hogg, James (Ettrick Shepherd) 145(and n12) Hogg, John 148 Hogg, Thomas Jefferson 148 Hogg Roll 148, 150 Holford, Matthew 168(n10) Holinshead, Raphael 20, 155, 163 Holland, Abraham 144 Hollinghead, Hugh 34 Holman, Elias 32 Holman, Richard 32 Holmes, Clive 1(n2), 8, 22, 26, 53, 53(n91), 109(n72), 111(n78) Holmeside 48 Holy Island 40 Holyroodhouse, bishop of 1 Home, Sir George, earl of Dunbar 54 Hook, David 149(n26) Hooker, Richard 143(n1) Horsman, E.A. 112(n84) Horton (Northumberland) 34, 53 Horwitz, Henry 35(n59) Hoskins, W.G. 4(n11), 37(n72) Houghton-le-Spring 27, 40, 42, 63(99), 111, 154 Houlbrooke, Ralph A. 16(n69), 25(n21) House of Commons 53, 54, 55 House of Lords 54, 87

Houston, R.A. 10(n47), 110(n76), 146(n13) Howard family: Thomas, earl of Suffolk 139; William, Lord 124(and n33), 125, 136, 139 Howell, 9(n41), 130(n60), 140(n110) Howick 58 Howson, John 135 Hoyle, R.W. 89(n94), 121(n18) Hudson, Pat 7, 9, 10, 19, 169(n13), 171(n20) Hughes, Ann 8(n37), 121(n22) Hughes, Paul L. 50(n38), 101(n31) Hull, University of 4 Hungary 144 Hunsdon, Lord see Henry Carey Hunt, Richard 134 Hunter Blair, C.H. 49(n33), 53(n92), 54(n57), 58(n74, n75), 154(n52) Hunter, Cuthbert 81(n61) Hunter, John 33 Hunter, Thomas 33 ‘The hunting of the Cheviot’ (‘Chevy Chase’) 144, 145, 146 Huntingdon, earl of see George Hastings; Henry Hastings Huntingdonshire 114 Hutchinson, William 3(n9) Hutton, Matthew, archbishop of York 51–2, 91 identity: and ancestry 25; blurring of 18; and collective memories 144–57; complexity of 43; hybridity of 14; ideological 19–20, 21; local/national loyalties 48–9; mosaic of 19; real/imagined 6, 11, 17, 20, 165–6; religious 135–42; shifting/changing 14; social/cultural 6–7, 165, see also regional identity Ightham Mote (Kent) 34–5, 154(n51) Inner Temple 29 Innes, C. 84(n76) Ireland 13, 74, 80, 168(n11) Islandshire 12 Jackman, Henry 34 Jackson, Thomas 128, 128(n50), 130(n59), 132–3 James I and VI 1–2(and n4, n5), 54, 58, 63, 64, 66, 81(n64), 82, 94, 122, 124, 153; and the borders 12, 18, 83–4, 93; and coal industry 105; death of 11; and devolution 171; journey south 108;

207

INDEX and religion 91, 139; and security of the realm 136; and union of the crowns 82–3 James, bishop William 29, 55, 90 James, Dr 3 James, Mervyn 3, 45(n7), 48(n21, n22), 61, 94, 119(n9), 123(n25), 143, 158(n71) James, William, bishop of Durham 60, 113 Jennison family 54; Ralph 130; Robert 130–1; William 38–9, 130, 140 Jewell, Helen 10 John, king 39 Johnston, John 156 Jones, Sir Francis 33, 33(n49) Jones, M.K. 112(n82) Jopson, Matthew 30 Keenan, Siobhan 160(n79, n82), 161(n83) Keene, Derek 96(n13) Kent (county) 26, 28, 33, 154 Kent, Joan R. 9, 52(n49) Kepier 48, 111 Ker, Robert 79, 81 Kesselring, K.J. 119(n10), 122(n21, n22, n24) Kidwelly 148 Killingworth Moor 109 King, Andy 112(n83) King, Rebecca 12(n51), 45(n5), 109(n68, n69, n70) King’s Lynn (Norfolk) 160 Kittredge, George Lyman 144(n5), 146(n15) Knox, John 126, 127, 128, 129 Kyle, Chris R. 54(n56), 55(n61), 86(n87) Lake, Peter 51(n45), 52(n48), 117(n3) Lambarde, William 105–6 Lambeth 32 Lamesley 104 Lampton, Joseph 129 Lancashire 26, 52, 121(n18), 160, 166 Lancaster (place) 155 Lancaster, Bill 3(n9), 12(n51), 20(n75), 173(n23) Lanchester 120 land ownership 8–9, 16, 167; and the crown 32–4; and the gentry 24–5; Londoners’ interest in 16–17, 32, 33, 34; and marriage 30; pattern of

property deals 34; and property transactions 31–4; retaining 42 Langley 61 Langton, John 8(n33), 20(n76) Lapsley, G.T. 15(n62) Larkin, James F. 50(n38), 101(n31) Laud, William, bishop of London 56, 133 Laurence, Anne 10 Lawson family: Dorothy 130; Sir Wilfred 91, 92; Sir William 58(n77) Layton 62 ‘Legend of St Cuthbert’ (R. Hegg) 141, 148 Leicester, earl of see Robert Dudley Leicester, University of 4 Leicestershire 114 Levack, Brian P. 114(n88) Levine, David 17(n70), 38(n76), 102(n35), 103(n42), 105(n51), 174(n28) Lewen family: Edward 103; Robert 36 libri pacis 16, 56 Liddell family 29, 39; Elizabeth 41; Thomas 41 Liddesdale 64, 69, 145 Liddy, Christian Drummond 12(n51) Lightfoot, George 62 Lilburne, John 24–5 Lillington Lovell (Oxfordshire) 34 Lincoln (place) 114 Lincoln, earl of 160 Lincoln’s Inn (London) 29, 41, 60, 61 Lincolnshire 26, 31, 33 Lindisfarne 149 literature 20 Lively, Edward 55 Liverpool 162 Llewellyn, Nigel 41(n94), 153, 154(n50) Loades, David 104(n46) London, Londoners 1, 16–17, 29, 31, 32, 33, 33–4, 40, 50, 71, 87, 102, 136, 154, 165 Long Newton 120, 121 Longley (Yorkshire) 30 Longstaffe, W.D.H. 129(n54, n56), 134(n83) Loomie, Albert J. 138(n98) Low Countries 39 Lowther, Sir Richard 69 Ludlow 81(n64) Lumley Castle 152–3 Lumley family 35, 36, 50(n36); John, Lord 27, 152–3; Ralph, Lord 153

208

INDEX Lunn, David 123(n26), 124(n32), 125(n34, n35) Macbray, John 127 MacCaffrey, Wallace 119(n9) McCord, Norman 20(n75), 173(n25) MacCulloch, Diarmaid 117, 119(n9), 125, 126(n37, n39) McIlwain, Charles Howard 83(n71) Mackay, Angus 92(n108) Mackbray, John 128 McKinnell, John 159(n75) Maddison family 154; Lionel 39, 103, 132 Mains, Brian 110(n76) Manley, Gordon 157(n63, n67) Manners, Sir George 87(n89) Mansfield, Ralph 78 Mar, earl of 69 march laws 83–4 Marcombe, David 15, 45(n7), 48(n23, n24, n27, n28), 55(n60), 56(n65), 73(n32), 104(n46), 111(n79), 119(n8), 126(n42), 132(n72), 149 Mares, F.H. 82(n66, n68) marprelate tracts 126 marriage, endogenous 26, 29, 165–6; exogenous 26–7, 28–9; and male attachment to location 27, 28–9; settlements 29–31, 166; wifely role 27–8; and wills 41–2 Marshall, J.D. 4(n10), 8, 22 Mary, queen of Scotland 68, 118, 122, 124 Mary Tudor 45, 47, 104, 135 Matthew, Toby, bishop of Durham 49(n32), 51–2, 55, 61, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 95, 99, 104, 108, 115, 125(n36), 130, 131, 151 Maughen, John 137 Medomsley 33 Meikle, Maureen 14, 47(n20), 76(n44), 78(n51), 81(n62), 111(n79), 122(n20) Melville, James 127(n46) Mervailous combat of contrarie (1588) 98–9 Michie, Ranald 34 middle marches 73–9, 75, 77, 80, 82, 82–93, 97, 169, 170 Middle Temple (London) 58, 59, 62 Middlesex 154 Middleton family 31(n41); Charles 30; Robert 58; Thomas, Jr 30, 40–1, 58, 59, 77, 166; Thomas, Sr 41, 166 Milburne family 65 mint 40(n97)

Mitford family: Christopher 36; Henry 36; Michael 35; Roger 39 Monkwearmouth 120 Montagu, Sir Edward 86(n87), 87(n89) Monteagle, Lord 160 Moray, earl of 122 Morgan, F.W. 5(n18) Morgan, Victor 111(n81), 157(n65) Morley, Lord 160 Morpeth 1, 18, 30, 36, 53, 58, 59, 87, 111, 115 Morpeth, Sir Edward 78 Morpeth Castle 74 Morrill, John S. 22(n1), 23, 24, 44(n2), 83(n71) Morris, J. 19 Morton (place) 27, 62, 63(99) Morton, William, archdeacon of Durham 129(n54), 130, 133, 137 Morton family 40; Roger 32; William 14(n60) Morton Grange 62–3 Murdoch, Alexander 8(n37) Murton (Durham) 42 Muschamp, George 59, 106–7 Musgrave, Humphrey 77 Musgrave, Richard 32 Myers family: Jane 30; Robert 30 Naworth 124 Naworth Castle 40 Nederman, Carey J. 98(n18) Nef, J.U. 33(n51), 37(n73, n75), 38(n77), 100(n28), 104(n47) Neile, Richard, bishop of Durham 55–6, 60, 62, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135 Nelson, Alan H. 158(n73), 159(n75) Neville, Cynthia J. 46(n9, n10, n11) Neville family 48, 49; Charles, 6th earl of Westmorland 45 Newcastle 9, 11, 17, 18, 19, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33, 42, 43, 76, 174; Castle 85; and central government 170–1; civil society in 100–5; coal mines and staithes 36–8; and Corpus Christi celebrations/plays 158–60, 161; as custom port for wool/hides 37; education in 110; and extension of geographic scope 104–5; financiers of 40; gaol deliveries in 91; horse-racing in 109; link with London elites 161; merchant adventurers of 39, 53; nurturing character of 108–9; oastmen/hostmen of 35, 38–9, 75, 87,

209

INDEX 105; parliamentary representation 53–4, 55, 87; as principal provisioning centre 39–40; privy council sessions in 51; property market 35–6; and protection of privileges 100–4; as provincial centre 161–2; religious convictions 127–31; as trading/commercial centre 37–9; and travelling players 159–61 Newell, Richard 131 Newminster Abbey 31(n41), 36 Newton, Adam 134 Newton, Diana 110(n75), 136(n91), 139(n104) Newton, Robert 67(n3) Nicholls, Mark 138(n99) Nichols, John 2(n3), 108(n63) Nicholson, Tony 6, 7 Norfolk 26, 28 Norham 120, 149 Norham Castle 67 North Durham 12 North Shields 38 North Tynedale 90, 170; see also South Tynedale; Tynedale Northampton, Henry, earl of 139 Northamptonshire 26, 41 northern rising (rising of the northern earls) (1569) 11, 15, 17, 45, 60, 75, 118–23, 121(n22), 126, 129, 135, 152, 157 Northumberland 2, 3, 11, 12, 14(n60), 15, 17, 23, 24, 26, 29, 31, 34, 45, 51, 52, 154, 165, 167, 168; autonomy of 73; catholicism in 121–5; civility in 96–7, 114–16; and conflict between urban/rural elites 107–8; crime in 1067; cultural pride in 147; denominational affiliations in 138–42; and education 110–14; first inhabitants of 156–7; governance of 57–8, 60, 61–5; and government of the borders 83–6, 90–3; and gunpowder plot 138; lawlessness in 105–6; and parliamentary representation 53, 54, 55, 86–9, 136; policing of 71; prejudices concerning 94–6, 114; principal residents of 56; Protestantism in 125–35; recusancy in 72; and riding surnames 64–5; shortcomings in 98–9; urban oligarchy in 62; wardenry of 73–82 Northumberland, earls of see Percy family Northumbria 6, 173 Northumbrian revival 20

Norton (Durham) 148 Norwich 29, 160 Nottinghamshire 28, 29, 114 Nuttall, P. 16(n67) Oakes, John 32 O’Day, Rosemary 48(n23), 55(n60), 131(n68) Ogle family 35, 139; Lord 47, 57, 63, 160; Thomas 93 Orde, John 32 The origin and succession of the bishops of Durham 148–9, 151 Ornsby, George 40(n96), 134(n82) Ottadini 155–6 Otterburn, battle of 173 outlaws 69 Owst, G.R. 25(n20) Oxford 62 Oxford University 29, 111–13, 132, 133, 141, 145 Oxfordshire 29, 31 Page, William 72(n30) Palmes, W. 130(n58) ‘Paper Booke’ 86, 88 Parker, Matthew, archbishop of Canterbury 126 Parliament 53–65, 132, 165 Paston, Margaret 28(n11) Pattenden, Philip 148(n22), 152(n42) Pawston (Northumberland) 34 Payton, Philip 15(n66) Peasants’ Revolt (1381) 25(n20) Pembroke, earl of 160 Pennines 170 Pennington, Joseph 58(n77) Penshurst house (Tunbridge Wells) 24 Percy, bishop (18th century) 146 Percy family 41, 46, 145; Harry ‘Hotspur’, earl of Northumberland 167–8, 169; Henry, earl of Northumberland 146; Thomas, earl of Northumberland 45, 47(and n16), 78(and n50), 138, 140 Perne, Dr 112 Pevsner, Nikolaus 153(n45) Phellips, Sir Edward 89 Philippa, Queen 112 Philipps, Francis 32 Phythian-Adams, Charles 5(n17), 7, 10, 11(n50), 12, 13, 118, 170 Piele, John 112(n82) Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) 3, 47(n16), 168

210

INDEX Pilkington, James 25, 40, 48, 49, 50, 126, 127, 128, 129 Pitt family: Edward 113; Elizabeth 113; Sir William 113 Plymouth Castle 100 Pole, Cardinal 139 politics: and accession of Elizabeth I 45–6; aftermath of northern rising 45; and Council of the North 51–2; and favourable financial terms 52–3; and local/outsider dichotomy 47, 48–9; and transformation of clerical hierarchy 48–50; and wardens of the marches 46–8 Pollard, A.J. 12(n51), 13, 27(n26), 45(n5), 95(n5), 110(n75), 112(n83) Pollard, Sidney 4 Pollitt, Ronald 121(n22) Preston, Roland 123–4, 125 privy council 67, 71, 73, 84, 90, 91–2, 103–5, 107, 137(n96), 138, 169 property ownership see land ownership Protestants 41, 51, 73, 78, 117, 172; dissenters 126–7; identities 125–35; prayer book Protestants 126 Puckering, Sir John 50(n38) Pulborough (Sussex) 32 Pulteney, Sir John 24 Puritans 73, 90, 126–33, 139, 172 Questier, Michael C. 117(n2, n3), 123(n28), 124(n29, 31), 125(n36) Radcliffe family 30; Sir Francis 136, 140; Mary 136 Rae, Thomas I. 46(n9, n13) Raine, J. 51(n46), 120(n15), 121(n19), 137(n92) Ralph, sheriff/mayor of Newcastle 36 Ravensworth Castle 29 Rawlinson, Richard 148, 149 Read family 65; Sir William 40 Reading, University of 4 rebellion of 1569 see northern rising (rising of the northern earls) Redesdale 12, 68, 69, 82, 170 Reed, James 144(n5), 145(n12) Reed, Michael 109(n72) Reformation 117, 151, 159, 162, 166, 173 regional identity: absence of 21; alien observations of 10; and centralised administrative structures 44; comparative studies 15; and concept

of ‘region’ 4–5, 163–4; and country communities 8–9; and difference 3; early studies 3–4; formation of 14; historiography/theory of 2–11; kaleidoscopic/multi-layered 9, 19; and land ownership/country gentry 8–9; localism of 3, 168, 173–4; and loyalty to monarch 44; and the map-makers 155–7; and modernity 7; and northeast elites 16–21; and outside influences 7; political 2–3; and real/imagined communities 6, 11; and regionalism/regional consciousness 5–6; and sense of distinctiveness 7–8; and social/cultural space 6–7, 11, 165; and urban oligarchies 9; see also identity Reid, Rachel Robertson 46(n9), 51(n40), 119(n9), 140(n109) Reinmuth, Howard S. 124(n33) religion 19–20, 171–3; changing positions/conversions in 132–3; clerical hierarchy 48–50; disputes 135–6; festivals associated with 143, 161–2; identities 135–42; and kinship 138–41; see also Arminians; Calvinists; Catholics; Protestants; Puritans Remington, Mary 132 Richard II 153 Richardson, G.B. 130(n58) Richardson, John 152 Richardson, M.A. 40(n97), 145(n11) Richardson, R.C. 127(n43) Richmond (Yorkshire) 30 Richmond, Colin 28(n21) Riddell family 29, 39; Sir George 113–14; Henry 41, 166; Sir Peter 54, 55, 58(n79); Sir Thomas 54, 59; William 58(n79) Ridley (manor) 31 Ridley family 31(n41), 34; William, Jr 32; William, Sr 31, 68, 69 Ridolfi plot 152 rievers (riding surnames/clansmen) 64–5, 69, 84(n78) Risby, Catherine 113 ‘Rites of Durham’ 147–8 Rivington (Lancashire) 40 Roberts, Brian K. 116(n97), 170(n16) Robson family 65; Ralph 64(n106) Rogers, Nicholas 24(n17) Rollason, David 12(n51) Rollinson, David 4(n15), 163(n3) 211

INDEX Roskell, J.S. 36(n67) Rothbury (Northumberland) 33 Royle, Ted 4, 7, 172(n21) Rud, Thomas 149(n25), 151(n36, n39) Russell, Sir Francis 48, 67 Ruthall, Richard 34 Rutland 114 Sacks, D.H. 9 Sadberge 57 Sadler, Sir Ralph 74(n38), 119, 130 Sahlins, Peter 7, 164(n5) St Cuthbert 3, 20, 41, 120, 143, 147, 148, 149–52, 173, 174 St Dunstans (London) 32 St Giles (Durham) 120 St Helen Auckland 120 St Margaret (Durham) 120 St Michael and All Angels (Houghton-leSpring) 154 St Nicholas (Durham) 120, 133 St Nicholas (Newcastle) 42, 127, 128, 154 St Oswald (Durham) 27, 41, 120 St Peter the Poor (London) 32 Salisbury 115 Salter, George 32, 33 Salter, Sir Nicholas 33(n49) Salvin family 31(n41), 48, 125; George 124; Gerard 124(n30) Sampson, Anne 113 Sanderson family: Henry, Jr 132; Henry, Sr 92, 103–4, 137(and n96) Sandwich 100 Sandys, Edwin, archbishop of York 135 Sargent, Helen Child 144(n5), 146(n15) Saville family: Sir Henry 145; John 107 Saxton, Christopher 156, 157 schismatics 126 Scholefield, James 25(n20) Scotland, Scots 11, 12, 18, 26, 52–3, 102, 169; and Anglo-Scots border 13, 64; and Anglo-Scots relations 26, 69–70, 77, 78, 169; and possible Irish alliance 80; and the rievers 69; and union with England 82–3, 89–90 Scott, Tom 4(n12), 6(n22) Scott, Sir Walter 145 Scriven (Yorkshire) 75 Scrope family: Edward 61(n91); Emmanuel, 11th Lord 61, 140; Sir George 61(and n91), 140; Henry, 9th Lord 61; John, 8th Lord 61; Thomas, 10th Lord 46, 61, 81

Seaton Delaval 30, 58 Sedgefield 41, 120 Selby family 36, 54, 139; Sir George 29, 63, 87, 102; Sir John 34, 64, 77; Sir Ralph 64, 106–7; Sir William, Jr 34–5, 54, 58, 59, 63, 90, 91, 92, 103, 154(n51), 157; Sir William, Sr 34, 35, 38, 39, 157 Selden, John 22, 23 Seng, Peter 145(n10) Seton-Watson, Hugh 6(n23) Shaftoe family 31(n41), 35; Anthony 34; James 28; Mark 39 Shagan, Ethan H. 117(n2) Shakespeare, William 167, 168 Sharp, Sir Cuthbert 45(n7), 119(n9) Sharpe, C. 19 Shawcross, Charles 34 Sheffield, Lord 52, 91, 110, 137 Shell, Alison 125(n36) Shetland 6 Shrewsbury, George, earl of 57, 62 Shropshire 23, 24, 160 Sidney, Sir Philip 144, 145, 146, 168 Simonburn 73(n32) Slack, Paul 96(n10), 97(n16), 161 Slater, M. 25(n21) Slingsby family: Francis 75, 77; Sir Henry 139–40 Smart, Peter 134, 134(n84), 148(n24) Smith, Sir Thomas 22, 23, 24, 36, 59, 154 Sockburn (Durham) 59, 62 Solway Firth, battle of 48 Somerset (county) 26, 28, 42, 160 Somerset, Edward, earl of Worcester 124(n33), 139 Sopwith, T. 131(n64) South Tynedale 111, 170; see also North Tynedale; Tynedale Sparhawke 38 Spence, R.T. 64(n105, n108) Spenser, Edmund 168(n11) Spufford, Margaret 118 Stafford, Lord 160 Staffordshire 31, 63 Stanhope Hall 61 Star Chamber 50(and n38), 85, 91, 136 Starkey, Thomas 96, 113 state: central government views 18; formation 66, 79, 94; impact on elites 18 Steele, Robert 83(n70) Stella 27 212

INDEX Stewart, A.M. 144(n5) Stockton 121 Stone, Lawrence 30 Stow, John 152 Stoyle, Mark 15(n66) Streatlam 50(n36), 62, 75 Strong, Roy 153(n44) Strype, John 82(n70) Stuart, Lady Arbella 95, 114 Sturgeon, H.A.C. 58(n79) Style, William 32 Suffolk (county) 26, 31 Suffolk, Thomas, earl of 33 Sunderland 37, 105 Surrey 28, 114 Surtees, Robert 59(n85), 61(n95), 62(n98), 63(100), 143(n2) Surtees Society 27(n27), 40(n98), 147 Sussex (county) 106, 160 Sussex, Thomas, earl of 50(and n34), 63, 119, 122, 160 Sutton (Surrey) 33 Sutton, Thomas 37–8, 164 Swalwell 35 Sweet, Rosemary 3(n9), 45(n6) Swift, Robert 41 Swinburne family 31(n41), 48 Swinhoe family: Thomas 59; William 32 Symeon of Durham 149–51 Syon House (London) 138

Thornton, Roger 24 Thornton, Tim 23(n12) Threlfall-Holmes, M. 39(n84) Tillbrook, Michael J. 23(n7), 48, 49(n29, n32), 56(n65, n68), 60(n89), 128(n49), 131(n69), 133, 134, 135(n85) Tilney, Edmund 30(n35) Tite, Colin G.C. 148(n21) Tomaney, John 2 travelling players 21, 143 Trent, river 112 Tresham, Thomas 132 Trevannion, Elizabeth 82 Trevor-Roper, Hugh 38(n76), 108(n66) Trollope, Francis 140, 141 Trollope, John 140 Trollope, Samson 140 Tuck, Anthony 110(n76), 112(n83) Tudors 13–14, 44, 52, 79, 119, 171 Tupling, G.H. 4(n11) Turner, Graham 13(n53) Tweed, river 13, 45 Twizel 34 Tyne, river 38, 102, 161 Tynedale 12, 68, 69, 82, 112, 116, 170; see also North Tynedale; South Tynedale Tynemouth Castle 92, 138 Tyneside 36, 165, 170

Tacitus 97 Talbot family: Edward, 7th earl of Shrewsbury 57–8, 63, 88(n92); Jane 62 Tanfield (Durham) 34 Tawney, R.H. 31, 32(n48), 33(n49) taxation 9, 100 Taylor, Susan 119(n11) Tees, river 13, 45, 77 Tees valley 13, 26, 27, 121 Teesdale 33, 157, 170 Tempest family 36, 48; Jane 27; Mrs 139; Sir Nicholas 27 Teviotdale 64 Thickley (Durham) 24 Thirsk, Joan 13(n56), 30(n40) Thompson, Anthony 137 Thompson, E.P. 30(n40) Thomson, T. 84(n76) Thornborough, John, bishop of Bristol 101(and n33) Thornell, Eleanor 27 Thornley 140

Udall, John 127, 128, 129 Underdown, David 128(n51) Underwood, M.G. 112(n82) union of the crowns 18–19, 55, 82–3, 114, 171; commission for (1604) 87–90; and ‘Paper Booke’ 86, 88; proclamation on 82–3 urban culture 158–62 urban oligarchies 9, 24, 62, 161, 165, 166; and coal industry 37–8, 39; as merchants/traders 37, 38, 39–40; and property owning 35–6 The vanitie and downe-fall of superstitious ceremonies (1628) 134 Verney family 25; Sir Edward 32 Vetera Indictamenta 57, 64, 85, 91 Wade, J.F. 37(n72), 39(n82) Walden, Lord 91–2, 92, 93 Wall, Alison 56(n67), 119(n11) Wallington (Northumberland) 32, 48, 53, 58 213

INDEX Walmesley, Thomas 107 Walsham, Alexandra 125(n36) Walsingham, Francis 67(and n7), 80 Walter, John 17(n72) Walworth 114 Wanklyn, M.D.G. 23(n12) Ward, Samuel 131 warden system 73–9, 75, 76, 83 Warkworth (Northumberland) 72 Warwickshire 26 Waterhouses 140 Waterson, Edward 129 Watt, Tessa 145(n9) Watts, S.J. 3, 15, 41(n91), 47(n18), 51(n44), 57(n71), 61(n95), 62(n97), 64(n105, n109), 70(n23), 72(n28), 73(n33), 78(n49), 83, 88(n93), 89(n94), 139(n102) Wear Valley 6, 37 Weardale 61, 157, 170 Wearside 165 Wedderburn, Robert 144(n5) Weever, John 1, 153, 158 Welbury, Anthony 140 Welford, Richard 36 Welsh Marches 13 Wensleydale 27 West Indies 8 West Orde 32 West Riding 58 Westminster 22, 32, 54, 97, 125, 154, 168–9 Westmorland 26, 48, 51, 52, 63, 65, 71, 84, 111, 114, 115, 121(n18), 155, 160, 165, 166, 170 Westmorland family 48, 49 Weston, Sir Henry 33 Weymouth 100 Wharton family 48 Whickham 35, 36, 38, 104 Whitehall (London) 51, 85, 114 Whitmore, George 32 Whittingham family 125; Katherine 120; William 126, 135, 149 Whitworth 120 Widdrington (place) 53

Widdrington family 53, 146–7; Sir Henry, Jr 53, 58, 59(n80), 63, 64, 69, 75(n42), 77, 78, 79–80, 82, 84, 86(and n86, n87), 88, 89, 90, 92, 124–5, 136, 138; Sir Henry, Sr 63–4; Sir John 47; Sir Robert 53, 75(n42), 77, 78, 79, 84; Sir Roger 75(n42), 77, 78, 79, 82, 93, 123–5, 136–8; Sir William 53 Willard, C. 28(n21) William I 149 Williams, John 32, 33 Williamson, Bill 173(n23) Willimontswick 31, 68 Willis Bund, J.W. 106(n55) Willoughby, Lord 160 Wilson, E.M. Carus 37(n72) Wilson, Richard 32 Wilson, Robert 140, 141 Winchester 126 Winwood, Sir Ralph 129(n54), 136 Wiseman, Richard 32, 33 Withington, Philip 159(n76) Wittan 50(n36) Witton Castle (Durham) 36, 133 Wolsey, Thomas, bishop of Durham 63 Wood, A. 133(n77) Wood, Diana 130(n62) Worcester, earl of see Edward Somerset Worcestershire 26, 28, 31 Wormald, Jenny 83(n71) Wren, Sir Charles 62 Wrightson, Keith 8(n36), 10, 17(n70), 38(n76), 102(n35), 103(n42), 105(n51), 156(n62), 174(n27, n28) Wynn family 114; Sir John 114 Wynyard 143 Wyvell, Christopher 114 Yelverton, Sir Christopher 99 York 27, 42, 57, 73, 87, 160, 164 York, archbishop of 12, 51 Yorkshire 15, 26, 28, 31, 33, 51, 155, 166 Young, James 79 Zurich 135

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