(ADAMSON) The English Noblity and The Projected Sttlement of 1647

The English Nobility and the Projected Settlement of 1647
Author(s): J. S. A. Adamson
Source: The Historical Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 567-602
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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The Historicaljournal, 30, 3 (I987), pp. 567-602
Printedin GreatBritain
THE ENGLISH NOBILITY AND THE

PROJECTED SETTLEMENT OF 1647
J. S. A. ADAMSON
Christ's College, Cambridge
On 26 July I647 Westminster, in the grip of plague and political crisis,

exploded with rioting.1 With the connivance of leading Presbyterian politicians
in parliament and the City, a throng of apprentices and demobilized soldiers
besieged the two Houses, coercing the imprisoned members to accede to their
demands.2 Many ofthe rioters had subscribed to an outlawed 'Solemn Engage-
ment',3 calling for the restoration of the king: they demanded the reversal of
parliament's declaration against this Engagement, and the return of the City's
militia forces to its own strongly 'Presbyterian' Militia Committee.4 As the
main body of rioters swarmed into the Court of Requests, through the Painted
Chamber and assailed the doors of the house of lords, another smaller party
led by one Brace, a grocer, ran down the Water Lane leading from the house
to the river, to block this means of escape.5 Reminded by one of the rioters that
'not at anie hand [was] this house to be forced', Brace retorted 'what they did,
they were aduised by a Member of the house of Comons '6 'Keepe them in,
keepe them in thises three daies', shouted their ringleader, the reformado
captain, William Musgrave, 'and if they will not grant your desires, cutt their
throates.'7 Through the barred doors of the Lords' chamber came cries of
1 Westminster P[ublic] L[ibrary], MS F4 (St Martin's Church wardens' accounts for i647),
pp. 2-I I. In St Martin's Westminster the plague epidemic of i647 reached its peak on 26 and 27
July, as indicated by the parish burial register. Mortality from plague in Westminster was in i647
ten times higher than the rate for the summer of i648. See also the church warden's entry for 28
May: 'Paid Clarke for carrying a man that died in dunghill ally of the plague and lay dead
unknown two daies, six shillings and six pence' (MS F4, p. 24).
2 A PerfectSummary of ChiefePassagesin Parliament,no. 2 (26 July-2 Aug. i647), pp. 9-I2
(B[ritish] L[ibrary], E 5i8/I3). Dr Williams's Lib., MS 24.50 (Thomas Juxon's diary), fo.
II3.
3 The petitionand solemne engagement of the citizensof London([3 I July], I 647), B.L., E 5 i 8/ iI.
Bodl[eian] Lib[rary], MS Tanner 58, fo. 4I5.
M. A. Kishlansky, The rise of theNew ModelArmy(Cambridge, I979), pp. 266-8.
This account of the riots is drawn from the depositions of eye-witnesses taken before the
Committee investigating the violence, among the House of Lords Main Papers: H[ouse] [of]
L[ords] R[ecord] O[ffice], M[ain] P[apers] 25/9/47, fo. 23v (examination of Benjamin Spier,
confirmed by Thomas Tassel's deposition, ibid. fo. 24r-v).
6 H.L.R.O., MP 25/9/47, fo. 23v (examination of Spier). (The Main Papers are filed chrono-
logically, and references to them are by date and folio number: hence, 25/9/47 is 25 September
i647-)
I H.L.R.O., MP 25/9/47, fo. 2I (Anthony Henley's deposition).
567

568 J. S. A. ADAMSON
'Traytors, put them out, hang their guts about their necks and many other like
words '8
The sequence of reactions set in train by these riots provided the cir-
cumstances in which a section of the nobility - acting with its allies in the
Commons and army - could use the legislative machinery of parliament to
jettison the terms of settlement established in the Newcastle Propositions, and
to implement its own scheme for settlement, a settlement which commanded
the support of a majority in both Houses, as well as in the army's councils, and
offered terms which the king, for his part, was far more likely to accept. This
article seeks to answer four questions: by whom and when was the settlement
first devised? What were its terms? How was it managed? And why did it
fail ?
Within the besieged Lords' chamber on 26 July, peers' reactions to the
events outside their doors varied from outrage and indignation to open jubi-
lation. Some had been complicit in the management of the disorders; others
were profoundly hostile to the rioters and their aims. ByJuly I647, the Lords
were deeply divided between two principal factions: one was a powerful
group, with close links with the army officer corps, seeking to impose severe
limitations on the king's power, centred upon Viscount Saye and Sele, the
earls of Northumberland, Denbigh and Salisbury, and Lord Wharton - the
group in the Lords that was the object of the rioters' intimidation. Against this
group was arrayed an influential caucus of seven peers, dominated by Lord
Willoughby of Parham, in alliance with Lords Berkeley, Hunsdon and
Robartes, and the earls of Suffolk, Middlesex and Lincoln - hostile to what
was perceived as the political ambitions of the army, and anxious to effect a
restoration of the king on terms which imposed few limitations upon his power.
For these peers the success of the riots was a cause for rejoicing. Willoughby's
friend, the M.P. SirJohn Maynard, one of the principal instigators of the riots,
wrote exultantly to a royalist confidant with a report of the rioters' success.
The Apprentices... made the Speaker vote twice, that the K[ing] should come forth-
with to London. Northumberlands Red Nose looked pale, or Blewe, in earnest he
looked gastly like a dead man. Denbigh swore, and looked like a Diuell with his hellish
Fiery face. Pembroke was all for the Apprentices, and incouraged them. Willoughby
of Parrham is the Glory of England, a Valiant, wise, Bountifull, secret freind and loyal
subject: he is vnvaluable if you knew all.9
8 H.L.R.O., MP 25/9/47, fo. 2ir-v (deposition of William Hulles, servant to the Serjeant-at-
Arms).
9 BeineckeLib., Yale University, Osborn MS Fb I55 (John Browne'sCommonplace Bk), fo. 239:
Sir John Maynard to 'one about the King' [Berkeley?]. The letter is undated, but on internal
evidence was written between 29-3 I July i647. (A xerox copy of this Commonplace Book is held
in the H.L.R.O.) The original letter was intercepted and later used as evidence of Maynard's
complicity in the management of the July disorders.By this means it came into the parliamentary
archive, and was copied by Browne (then Clerk of the Parliaments) into his commonplace book,
probably well after the events described, as Browne's guess at a date - August i648 - is obviously
incorrect. This letter is almost certainly the document referred to by William Purefoy as the

ENGLISH NOBILITY 569
Within a year, the turncoat Willoughby was proving just how invaluable he
could be - as vice-admiral of the prince of Wales's fleet.
When parliament reconvened after the riots, all the peers of the Saye-
Northumberland group had left the capital, along with some fifty members of
the Commons and the Speakers of both Houses. In their absence, the City
authorities strengthened London's fortifications and raised forces in a Quixotic
challenge to the power of the army - already warning that it would march on
the capital to restore order and reinstate its political allies at Westminster.10
Those remaining at Westminster voted a resolution for the king's un-
conditional return to London and colluded with the City authorities in the
foolhardy preparations to resist the army's advance.1" London's 'counter-
revolution' was short-lived. With the threat of looting and pillage, opposition
to the army crumbled. Fairfax's forces entered the Lines of Communication,
and, on 3 August, with little resistance, took possession of the City. Three days
later, the members who had fled during the disorders accompanied the army's
procession to Westminster, led by the Saye-Northumberland peers and the
Speakers, riding in their coaches.12 Those, including Willoughby and
Hunsdon, who had been complicit in the violence and disorders since 26 July,
were impeached or fled from Westminster. Although the removal of the dozen
ringleaders from the lower House made relatively little impact on the more
numerous Commons, the failure of the 'counter-revolution' drastically altered
the balance of power in the Lords: seven of the eight peers active during the
Speakers' absence were impeached; others (such as Bruce, Stamford and
Robartes), who were in sympathy with the rioters' objectives, though clear of
any involvement in the disorders, pleaded excuses and rarely attended the
House.
Over the following five months - until impeachment proceedings against
Willoughby and his collaborators were dropped - the number of peers in
attendance seldom exceeded ten or twelve; of these, nine were members of the
Saye-Northumberland faction. Collectively, they had supported a vigorous
prosecution of the war and had been decisive in the establishment of the New
Model Army in I645, with Sir Thomas Fairfax as its commander. Its most
influential members - Saye, Wharton, Northumberland and Salisbury - had
since I646 exercised effective control of the Exchequer by means of their
'lett[er] wch was all his owne [Maynard's] hand writinge', which formed the basis of the charge
of treason against Maynard: Purefoy to Sir Peter Wentworth, 9 Sept. i647. Hampshire R.O.,
Jervoise MS, 44 M 69/E 77. It is also mentioned in John Boys's diary for 7 Sept., printed in
D. E. Underdown, 'The parliamentary diary of John Boys, I647-8', Bulletinof the Instituteof
HistoricalResearch,xxxix (I966), I47.
10 For the City's involvement in these events, see Valerie Pearl, 'London's counter-revolution',
in The interregnum: the questfor settlement,ed. G. E. Aylmer (I972), pp. 50-53. Kishlansky, New
Model, p. 267.
11 L[ords] _[ournagl, Ix, 362-4. C[ommons] _[ournagl, V, 259-6i.
12 Sir Edward Forde to [Lord Hopton?], 9 Aug. i647: Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo.
32.

management of the Committee of Revenue.13 Policy as well as patronage was

co-ordinated in the Lords with two other office-holding peers, the earl of Kent
and Lord Howard of Escrick. With Fairfax's cousin, the earl of Mulgrave,
Lord Grey of Warke and the rubicund earl of Denbigh, they had imposed
limitations on the power of the clergy under the Presbyterian church settlement
in I 646; and this unanimity in ecclesiastical matters was just as evident in their
attitude to settlement with the king. In the debates on the Newcastle Pro-
positions that year all nine had been noted by the French Resident, Montereul,
for their ambition severely to limit the powers of the monarch.14 During the
disorders at London, all had sought the protection of the army ;15 and on their
restoration to the Lords on 6 August they constituted what was in effect a one-
party House.16 This political dominance, almost fortuitously attained, pro-
vided the springboard from which to launch a new programme for the post-
war settlement; yet there was nothing fortuitous about the terms which the
peers now sought to implement. That programme had had a lengthy and
complex maturation.
I
The first hints that a new series of proposals was in preparation had reached
London around the first week of July I647, causing grave disquiet among
Denzell Holles's party in the City and parliament.17 Ever since the king had
been seized by Cornet Joyce on 4 June, there had been fears that the political
allies of the army - among whom Saye, Wharton, St John and Vane were
prominent - would take advantage of the king's captivity to conclude a
separate peace favourable to their own political and religious interests. A week
before the riots, on I9 July, Sir Lewis Dyve (whose informants on army politics
included Ashbournham, Lilburne and Ireton's brother-in-law, Sir Edward
Forde) 18 reported to the king the existence of a group in parliament, organized
by Lord Wharton, St John and Vane, that was laying plans for a projected
13 For the dominance of this group within the Committee of Revenue, see CJ, IV, 49I; L], VIII,
I95, 24I- P-R-O., SP 28/269/I, fos. I, I7, I9, 2I, 23, 39, 57; E 407/8/I67-8 (accounts of the
Receiver-Gen. of the Rev.); SP 28/350/IO (Cttee of Rev. acc., stray from the E 407 series). B.L.,
Add. MS I5750 (Misc. letters and warr.), fo. 23. The group's control of the Exchequer is discussed
inJ. S. A. Adamson, 'The peerage in politics, I 645-9' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Cambridge, i986), pp. 33-58. For contemporary criticism of their influence over the parlia-
mentary finances: An eye-salvefor the armie (i647), sig. A2 [2]v (B.L., E 407/I6).
14 Archives du Ministere des Relations Exterieures, Paris, Correspondence politique, Angle-
terre, t. 52, fo. 734.
15 Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68 (Nalson papers), fo. 35. Wharton does not appear as a signatory
of the peer's Declaration of 4 Aug. against the attempt to coerce parliament during the July riots;
this was because he was already at army headquarters when the riots took place and therefore
could not strictly state that he had been 'forced' to leave the capital.
16 Merc[urius] Morbicus ([20 Sept.] i647), p. 5. A Perfect Diurnall, no. 205 (5-I2 July i647), pp.
I64I-3 (B.L., E 5i8/3)-
17 For Fairfax's attempts to allay these fears see, Fairfax to Manchester, 8 July i647: L], IX,
323-4. Cf. Perfect Occurrences,no. 27 (2-g9July i647), pp. I74-[6] (B.L., E 5i8/2).
18 BedfordshireR.O., MS AD/3342; printed as 'The Tower of London letter-book of Sir Lewis
Dyve', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, Publ. Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc., XXXVIII (I958).

ENGLISH NOBILITY 57I
settlement with the king.'9 They were seeking to enlist the support of senior
officers, 'hoping therby to have the favour of the army to back them in their
designes', 'wherin some of the officers of the army, not without just cause, are
suspected to be of the same confederacy '.20 Among Holles's party, the appre-
hension that negotiations were being conducted in secret by this parliamentary
group was heightened by Saye's departure from London on 9 July - later
confirmed by reports that Saye had been involved in the drafting of the terms
of settlement, and had visited the king.2' The managers of this venture - Saye,
Wharton, St John, Vane and William Pierrepont22 - had been the same group
which, under Saye's direction, had sounded out attitudes to a settlement
among disaffected members of the king's privy council at Oxford in 1645.23
This scheme had been discovered by Saye's adversaries, and was decried by
Essex and his Scots allies as a flagrant breach of the ordinances forbidding
communication with the king.24 Saye's and Wharton's new initiative, reported
to be in negotiation in mid-July I 647, involved - according to Dyve - a group
of senior army officers, particularly Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton.25 Their
inclusion in the negotiations on the terms of settlement was a two-fold asset
to the success of the venture: they constituted a link with the army - which
would have to be conciliated if the terms of settlement were to be implemented;
and, second, if the proposals could be endorsed by the army and offered to the
king in its name, then its political promoters at Westminster were absolved
from the need to make a direct approach to the king - a course which could
have resulted in impeachment had it become public.
On Saturday 17 July, at the end of a week of consultations between West-
minster and army headquarters at Reading,26 this set of proposals was ready
for presentation to the General Council of the Army.27 There they were
delivered by Commissary-General Henry Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law, and
a member of the Commons. Although Ireton made it clear, in his speech to the
Council, that he had acted in a secretarial capacity in the 'preparation of
p[ar]ticulars fitt to tender to yor Ex[cellen]cy [Fairfax], and the Army', he
was at pains to distance himself from responsibility for the actual content of the
proposals.28 Far from claiming to be their author, he made it clear that he
19 Dyve to the king, i9 July i647: Dyve, 'Letter-Book' ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 68.
20 Ibid. p. 68.
21 After his departure on the gth, Saye did not attend the Lords again until the army restored
the Speakers to both Houses on 6 August: L_, Ix, 32I, 374. Beinecke Lib., Yale, MS Osborn Fb
I55 (Browne's Commonplace Book), fo. 239v. Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24.
22 Pierrepont was named as one of the managers of the projected settlement in Sir John
Maynard's letter to an attendant of the king, [29-3 I July I 647]: BeineckeLib., MS Osborn Fb I 55
fo. 239v. 23 MP June-July I645, fos. igo-263, esp. fo. 22 I.
24 For the background to these scandals and for the Savile affair see P. Crawford, DenzilHolles,
1598/-680: a studyof hispoliticalcareer(London,I979), pp. I X4-20; V. Pearl,'Londonpuritansand
Scotch fifth-columnists: a mid- I7th century phenomenon', in Studies in London historypresented to
Philip_Jones,ed. A. E.J. Hollaender and W. Kellaway (X969), pp. 318 ff.
25 Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 68. 26 Discussed in detail below pp. 572-5.
27 Selectionsfromthepapersof WilliamClarke,ed. C. H. Firth, 4 vols. (Camden Soc., I89I-I9OI),
I, 2I I, 2I6.
28 Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS LXV (General Council of the Army, Minutes), fo.
i o6r (I 7 July I647).

himself had reservations about the wisdom of some of the provisions, and
urged that a sub-committee of the Council might be established to report on
the scheme: 'Nott for a pr[e]sent Conclusion butt [for] Consideration: for I
cannot say the thinges have bin soe consider'd as to satisfie my self in
them. 29
This professed diffidence scarcely coheres with the suggestion that Ireton
was the originator of the proposals; it was the circumspect reaction of one who
had drawn up a draft according to a set brief, and who, though prepared to
present the scheme to the Council, was nevertheless cautious not to be identi-
fied too closely as its advocate. Ireton had a more than passing acquaintance
with the aristocratic sponsors of the projected settlement. It was Lord
Wharton who had launched Ireton's political career in I645, when he had
secured his election to Westminster as burgess for Appleby.30 Writing to Ireton
on 6 May I647, John Musgrave reminded him of the 'good opinion [held] of
the Lord Wharton, and the rather for that he hath brought you... into the
house'.31 And in the two weeks before I 7 July (during which the proposals
were drafted), and in the following two days when they were discussed in the
General Council of the Army,32 Wharton was in daily contact with Ireton, as
the senior of the parliamentary commissioners to the army.33 Although these
commissioners had completed their formal business with the army by the
evening of the i8th,34 Wharton delayed his departure until the afternoon of
the igth, presumably to hear how the proposals fared in the General Council
of the Army.35 As he left the army to return to Westminster, he was presented
with a revised draft of these 'heads of proposals',36 as amended in the
Council - consultations on which were to occupy him at London for the next
two to three days.37
In the weeks before Wharton's return to Westminster on the igth, com-
munication between the politicians at the capital, and Wharton, Cromwell
29 Worcester College, Clarke MS LXV (Army Council, Min.), fo. io6v. Part of the debate in
the Council of War this day is printed in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Pturitanism and liberty(London,
I938), p. 42I, where the MS is incorrectly cited as being Clarke MS LXVII.)
30 David Underdown, 'Party management in the recruiterelections, I 645-48', EnglishHistorical
Review,LXXXIII (I968), 243.
3[ John Musgrave], A fourth wordto the wise ([8 June] I647), p. 2 (B.L., E 39I/9).
32 The proposals delivered by Ireton were referred to a sub-committee of twelve officers and
twelve Agitators on the i8th, with leave for Cromwell to be present when he was able. Clarke
papers,ed. Firth, I, 2II, 2I6.
3 B.L., Add. MS 34253 (Parliamentary commrs' letters to Manchester, June-July I647), fos.
49,5I,54, 57-65,7 I-75. AlthoughtheearlofNottinghamwastechnicallyseinior
in rank,Wharton
was clearly the chief parliamentary negotiator.
34 Sir Thomas Fairfax to Lord Fairfax, i8July I647; B.L., Add. MS I8979 (Fairfax corr.), fo.
247.
3 It seems likely that the first meetings of this body took place on i 6 and I 7 July; I am grateful
to ProfessorAustin Woolrych for allowing me to read part of his study of the General Council
(Soldiersandstatesmen,Oxford, forthcoming), prior to publication.
36 Earl of Nottingham to Manchester, I9 July I647; The proposalsdeliveredto the earl of
Nottingham([2I July] I647), p. 8 (B.L., E 399/I0).
37 Dyve to the king, i9 July I647: Dyve, 'Letter-Book' ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 68.

and Ireton at army headquarters, had been maintained by Dr William Stane
and Scoutmaster General Leon Watson, the intermediaries in this clandestine
diplomacy. Lilburne had warned Cromwell against Stane, Watson and
Nathaniel Rich, as early as 22 June, regarding them as the emissaries of Saye's
group at Westminster." By the first week of July detailed negotiations had
commenced. John Ashbournham, the groom of the bed-chamber who acted as
messenger in the army officers' dealings with the king, noted that negotiations
had continued for about 'the space of twenty dayes' before the disorders broke
out at Westminster on 26 July, suggesting that these consultations began
around 6July,39 a date which also coincides with the time of Wharton's arrival
in the army as one of the parliamentary commissioners.40 Dyve, suspecting
that a new series of negotiations was afoot, wrote to the king on the 6th,
cautioning him against Stane and Watson, 'in case' (as he feared was likely)
'they shall come to speake with your Majesty'.4'
The appearance of Stane and Watson at this point is particularly significant.
Watson had been used by Fairfax as his intermediary in correspondence with
Wharton and Nottingham since June,42 and Stane was also well-connected,
with friends at Westminster and in the army. Through his treasurership of the
Eastern Association he had become acquainted with Cromwell ;43 but his
longest - and most profitable - association was with Saye. At the outbreak of
the war, Stane had kept Saye informed on the progress of mobilization in
Warwickshire ;44 and in i644 he was a member of a syndicate that sought
3 Lilburne to Cromwell, 22 June i647: printed in Ionahscryoutof thewhalesbelly(i647), p. 8

(B.L., E 400/5). See also the MS note in the B.L. MS of SirJohn Berkeley'smemoirs, identifying
the officers with whom Berkeley had 'often and free Communication' as 'Stanes, Watson or
Rich': B.L., Add. MS 29869, fo. 5. Lilburne also warned Cromwell against 'those two covetous
earth-wormes, Vaineand St John'; ibid. p. 3. St John was reported to have written to Cromwell,
warning him against proceeding too quickly with the negotiations with the king, lest they arouse
even greater suspicion. Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 29, fo. 263.
3 A narrativebyJohnAshburnham onKingCharlesthefirst,2 vols. (I830), II, 9I. The
of his attendance
authenticity of these memoirs is established by the existence of at least two contemporary MS
copies, intended for private circulation, corrected and annotated in Ashbournham's hand. They
were written after i658 (since SirJohn Berkeley is referred to as Lord Berkeley at the time of
composition), although Ashbournham claimed to have taken down notes 'whilst things were fresh
in my memorie': Ashbournham, Narrative,II, 58. Their utility as a factual account is greatly
diminished by their overtly polemical intent - defending Ashbournham'sconduct and denigrating
Berkeley's. For the MS copies, see P.R.O., PRO 30/34/I6 (Popham papers); East Sussex R.O.,
Ashburnham MS 3977. For a sample of Ashbournham's hand, B.L. Add. MS I5857 (Orig. lett.),
fo. I4. 4 A PerfectDiurnall (5-I2 July I647), p. I638 (B.L., E 5I8/3).
4' Dyve to the king, 6 July I647; Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, pp.
65-6.
42 H.L.R.O., MP 2i/6/47, fo- 76.
43 P.R.O., SP 28/27/2 (Army pay warr., Eastern Assoc.), fos. I93, 247, 252, 269. See also the
short biography of Stane in C. Holmes, TheEasternAssociation(Cambridge, I974), p. I 28. Stane's
father held lands in Warwick Lane, London, and Hornchurch, Essex, which his son inherited in
i646; Essex R.O., D/DCq/Ei (will of William Stane, sr.).
44 Stane to Mandeville, 30 Aug. i642: H.L.R.O., Willcocks MS, 2/I (HMC, Manchester
MSS, no. 505). Stane used to lodge with Lord Brooke'sformer tailor and client, John Dillingham
- an address also used by Stane's friend, Cromwell.John Weaver to Stane, 20. Aug. I644; P.R.O.,
SP I6/539/22 I. A. N. B. Cotton, 'John Dillingham journalist of the middle group', English
HistoricalReview,xciii (I978), 820, 832.

Saye's patronage in the Court of Wards for the grant of the Yorkshire lands
of Sir William Savile.45 His fellow interested parties were Henry Darley, a
colleague of Saye's from the Committee for Advance of Money who was also
a co-grantee of wardships with Saye's son, Nathaniel Fiennes ;46Saye's friend,
John Goodwyn, the chairman of the Committee for Petitions;47 and Lord
Wharton, upon whom Savile's lands were finally settled in i645.48 With such
a range of connexions, Stane was ideally suited to act as go-between in the
correspondence between Saye's group at Westminster and Cromwell and
Ireton in the army. Moreover, Stane had undertaken an almost identical
mission at Saye's behest in I645. Saye had then been engaged with Wharton
and St John in secret negotiations aimed at discrediting Holles and bringing
about the surrender of the royalist capital, as the first step towards a peace.
When they needed a reliable negotiator, StJohn recalled, 'Lord Say spoke of
Dr. Staines as a fitting man to send' ;49 Stane was duly despatched on Saye's
recommendation,50undertaking a role that he was to repeat in the negotiations
of summer i647.51
Two days after Ireton had firstrevealed the proposals to the General Council
of the Army, on I9 July, it was reported that Stane and Watson 'have lain
divers dayes longer heere in towne to negotiat with Sir Henery Vane the
yonger, Mr. St. Johns the solliciter and the Lord Wharton and some other
leading men of their faction in both Howses, to advance'their owne dangerous
designes'.52 Stane and Watson had an obvious reason for delaying their return
to army headquarters on the igth; Wharton was expected back in London
that day, bearing news of the General Council's reaction to the proposals
drafted by the politicians during the previous week.53By delaying their return
to the army until they had consulted with Wharton and the other 'leadicig
men of their faction', Stane and Watson could report back on the reaction at
Westminster to the General Council's modifications to the original proposals.
Wharton returned to London shortly before 9 p.m. that evening, bearing a
copy of the proposals in their revised form,54and immediately began a series
of meetings with the 'men of their faction in both Howses'. Accompanied by
P.R.O., WARDS 9/556 (Decree Bks), p. 622 (7 May I644), pp. 693, 776.
46 P.R.O., WARDS 9/556, pp. 622, 693, 877-
47 Saye to Lenthall, io Feb. I644: Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 62, fo. 555; P.R.O., SP 28/265/I
(Cttee Ptns papers). 48 L], VII,498-9.
49 H.L.R.O., MPJune-July I645, fo. 232 (StJohn's deposition concerning the 'Savile affair'),
corroborated by Savile's deposition, fo. 223v; and John Crewe's deposition, fo. 242V.
5 H.L.R.O., MPJune-July I645, fos. 232, 242V.
5 By May I648, Stane and Watson had become notorious as the henchmen of Saye's political
group. When the younger Vane broke with the army and followed Saye and Northumberland in
supporting the revocation of the Vote of No Addresses, it was put down to the fact that 'Do[cto]r
Stane and Scoutm[aste]r Generall Watson had bin too conversant with him'. Letter of intelligence
to Fairfax,24 May I648; WorcesterCollege,Oxford,ClarkeMS CXIV, fo. 2I.
52 Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. Tibbutt, p. 68.
53 Nottingham to Manchester, I9 July I647: Theproposalsdelivered to theearlof Nottingham(2 I
July] I647), p. 8 (E 399/IO). Lenthall was so sure that Wharton was to have returned by this day
that he wrote anxiously to John Rushworth, inquiring what had become of him, when he failed
to appear by the early evening. B.L., Sloane MS I5I9 (misc. letters), fo. I04.
54 The time of Wharton's arrival was noted by Lenthall in his letter to Rushworth; B.L., Sloane
MS I5I9 (misc. lett.), fo. I04v.

the puritan divine, Stephen Marshall, and the earl of Northumberland's

solicitor, the M.P. Sir Thomas Widdrington,55 Wharton called on his old
friend, William Lenthall,56 the first of a series of consultations which included
a planned meeting with Stane.57 The following morning, Tuesday 20th,
Wharton laid the scheme before the Lords. Starting with the proposal for
biennial parliaments, Wharton read through the ten heads which were later
to form the substance of the Heads of the Proposals adopted by the army.58 With
his political ally Ireton sponsoring the proposals within the General Council
of the Army, Wharton could confidently inform the House that these were
shortly 'to be expected from the Army'.5 While the Lords considered the
proposals item by item, Widdrington gave a very different report in the
Commons. He confined his remarks to the presentation of two requests, from
the Army Council and commissioners of the army ;60 the only mention of the
proposals, according to Henry Walker's report, was a vague reference to a
'grand Declaration' of the army 'as hee had heard spoken [of] by some of the
Officers '61
Within the context of the factional politics of the Lords, Wharton had out-
flanked the group of peers under Willoughby's leadership that was pressing for
a lenient settlement with the king. Although he and his allies of the Saye-
Northumberland group were numerically weaker than Willoughby's faction,
the promise of the army's endorsement for the scheme rendered unwise any
overt demonstration of hostility to the scheme by his opponents; while the fact
that he had disclosed its provisions to the House left Wharton free to canvass
openly for support among the 'men of their faction in both Howses'. However
successful this strategy may have been within the context of the aristocratic
factional alignments, such developments had rather different consequences in
the City. The day after Wharton's speech, the 2 I st, reformado officers,
including Captains Scarman and Farre, met with 'divers officers of the City
[Militia]' at Skinners Hall to undertake the Solemn Engagement calling for
the restoration of the king,62 a demand which became the strident rallying cry
of the mob that five days later assailed the parliament.
5 Widdrington also served as a useful ally for Northumberland in the house of commons.
Northumberland to Potter, 27 Jan. I646; Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS 0.1.2 (f).
Widdrington was also associated with Wharton's local factional interests in Westmorland and
Cumberland:[Musgrave],A fourthwordto thewise (I647), pp. 2-5, I5.
56 Lenthall had sponsored Wharton's admission to Lincoln's Inn in I638 and had close links
with the members of the Saye-Northumberland group in the Lords. The recordsof thehonourable
societyof Lincoln'sInn: admissionsi42o-i893, 2 vols. (I896), I, 234. Lenthall was Northumberland's
counsel in the Exchequer during the I630s; P.R.O., E I25/25 (Exch. of Pleas, Decree Bks), fos.
33 I -2V.
57 B.L., Sloane MS I519 (misc. lett.), fo. io4r-v. Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. Tibbutt, p. 68.
5 A Perfect Diurnall, no. 206 (I 9-26 July i 647), pp. I 668-9 (B.L., E 5 I 8/8).
5 A PerfectSummary,[no. I], (I9-26 July I647), p. 5 (B.L., E 5I8/9).
60
C], V, 252; the two papers referred to are entered in L], ix, 340-I.
61 Luke Harrvney [Henry Walker, anag.], PerfectOccurrences, no. 29 (I6-23 July I647), p. 20I
(B.L., E 5I8/7).
62 Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner
58, fo. 415 (depositions of William Rawson and Peregrine Pritty,
taken that day). For the text of the Engagement see Thepetitionandsolemneengagement (I647), B.L.,
E 5I8/I I.
20 HIS 30

On the 23rd, having allowed four days for Stane to report back to Cromwell
and Ireton the outcome of Wharton's consultations, the proposals were written
out by Rushworth and presented secretly to the king, who returned them with
'crosses and scratches upon them with his own pen'.63 By 25 July, news had
reached London that Saye and his associates in parliament were close to an
agreement with the king, in which the army had acted as broker.64 'On my
knowledge', SirJohn Maynard declared, 'the greatest enemies the K[ing] had
drewe them [the proposals], as my Lord Say, the Solicitor [St John], Nat.
Fiennes, old and young Vane, M[aste]r Pierepont, and Evelyn of Wilts.'65
The apprehension that this group was close to an agreement with the king,
undertaken with the backing of the army, precipitated panic among the
'Presbyterian' leadership, which ineptly planned the coup of 26 July.66
In the ensuing crisis Saye emerged as the leading political strategist among
the peers who fled the disorders at Westminster. While Wharton remained
with the army,67 Saye joined the Lords who had fled the capital at Hatfield,
Salisbury's Hertfordshire seat.68 Michael Baker, the Lords' messenger des-
patched to summon Salisbury to return to Westminster, 69 stumbled upon a
meeting at Hatfield that comprised a familiar contingent within the house of
lords: Saye, Northumberland, Salisbury, Howard, and Grey of Warke. Man-
chester, an eleventh-hour convert, accepted the peers' invitation to join them
at Hatfield and now threw in his lot with the Saye-Northumberland
group.70 After the meeting at Hatfield, Saye moved on to Latimers, where he
was joined by Northumberland for consultations with the king.7' From here
63 John Lawmind [Wildman], Putney proiects. Or the old serpent (i647), p. I4, (B.L., E 42I-
I9).
64 The riots appear to have been directed by a small group of M.P.s, including Sir William
Waller, Sir John Clotworthy and Sir John Maynard, operating from the Bell Tavern in King
Street, Westminster. Pearl, 'London's Counter-Revolution', p. 52. Professor Kishlansky has
questioned the degree to which the disorders of 26 July were the result of planning, suggesting
rather that the riots were the consequence of the pent-up grievances of reformadoes, apprentices
and other groups, which had been building up throughout the summer. The evidence of the
depositions taken from witnesses of the riots (surviving among the Lords' Main Papers) provides
clear evidence that the riots were carefully organized and directed by disaffected M.P.s. 'What
they [the rioters] did', declared Brace (one of the ringleaders of the mob), 'they were advised by
a Member of the house of Comons.' See House of Lords depositions, H.L.R.O., MP 25/9/47, fos.
2 I-24. Thus, while the grievances of reformadoesand apprentices provided the tinder, the decision
to apply the spark was made by the group of M.P.s who had been impeached by the army; and
the timing of this decision was a direct result of the news that Saye and his allies were close to
reaching a settlement with the king (a point which is corroborated by SirJohn Maynard's letter,
cited in the next note). See Kishlansky, The riseof theNew ModelArmy,pp. 266-7.
65 Maynard to 'one about the King', [29-3I July i647]: Beinecke Lib., MS Osborn Fb I55, fo.
239r-v. 66 Pearl, 'London's Counter-Revolution', p. 52.

67 LU, Ix, 367.
68
Deposition of Michael Baker, messenger of the house of lords, made 2 Aug. I647; sum-
marized in A Perfect Summary, no. 3 (2-9 Aug. i647), pp. I7-i8, (B.L., E 5i8/I5).
69 For Baker see LU, VIII, 203 ;Joseph Hunscott to Baker, H.L.R.O., MP 8/7/45, fo. 50. He also
served as Messenger attending the Commissionersof the Great Seal: P.R.O. (Kew), AO I / I 374/
I23 (Audit Office, Hanaper decl. acc., i643-4).
70 Michael Baker'sdeposition, pp. 20-I . Sir William Waller, Vindication of thecharacter
andconduct
of Sir William Waller(I 793), p. 19 I .
71 Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24 (letter of intell., 2 Aug. i647). The king was at Latimers
for around a week, from Monday 26 July; L_U,Ix, 346, 370.

he rode south to Hanworth Court in Middlesex - where the Lords' messenger
finally caught up with him - to await the army's advance towards London,
meeting Fairfax and his officers at Syon House on 3i July.72
In the aftermath of the riots, Stane's confidential diplomacy between the
politicians at Westminster and army headquarters was superseded by direct
consultations between the Saye-Northumberland peers and Fairfax's officer
corps. The draft presented to the king on the 23rd had been, however, only an
interim version of the proposals. Before it was ratified by Fairfax's regular
Council of War on I August, a further meeting was held to discuss how the
kingdom was to be settled. Convened on 3 I July at Syon House, Northumber-
land's Middlesex residence, it was attended by members of both Houses who
had fled the disorders at London, and senior officers of the army.73 Present
were the Speaker of the Lords, Manchester, and all the peers of the Saye-
Northumberland group: Saye, Wharton, Northumberland and Sali-sbury74
(from the Committee of Revenue); and five consistent allies in the Lords: the
earls of Kent, Mulgrave and Denbigh, and Lords Howard and Grey. From the
Commons came most of those who had been involved in the drafting of the
proposals: Nathaniel Fiennes, St John, William Pierrepont and Sir John
Evelyn. Although no minutes of what was discussed at this meeting survive,
72 A PerfectSummary, no. 3 (2-9 Aug. i647), pp. 20-I. Hanworth Court was owned by the
royalist Lord Cottington, but had been granted to Saye's use; Victoriacountyhistory:Middlesex,ii,
393, 395. Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. I70 (Nalson papers), fo. 204. The house was also used by
Nathaniel Fiennes: [William Prynne], A checketo Brittanicus(i644), sig. A2.
73 Ashbournham, Narrative(I 830), II, 92. Thememoirs of EdmundLudlow,ed. C. H. Firth, 2 vols.
(Oxford, 1894), I, i62. Ludlowe's evidence is confirmed by Salisbury's accounts at Hatfield:
Hatfield, A., Box L/I. On the composition and editing of Ludlowe's Memoirs,Dr Worden's
introduction to Ludlowe's A voycefrom the watchtower(Cam. Soc., 4th series, vol. 21, 1978) is
indispensable. Worden casts considerable doubt on the authenticity of Ludlowe's account,
pointing out (as Firth had also done in his edition), that Ludlowe had drawn heavily on the
account of the i647 negotiations by Sir John Berkeley. The text of the Memoirscontains the
admission that the author had derived information from an account 'I have seen in a manuscript
written by Sir John Berkeley himself, and left in the hands of a merchant of Geneva' (Memoirs,
ed. Firth, p. i53 and n.; Worden, pp. 57-8). Darby printed Berkeley'smemoirs in I699, the same
year in which Toland brought out Ludlowe's Memoirs- a coincidence that led Dr Worden to
construct an elaborate and entirely plausible hypothesis that Toland faked most of the section
dealing with i647, drawing on Berkeley's (authentic) memoirs for his information, and inventing
the story that Ludlowe had seen Berkeley's manuscript in Geneva to allay suspicions about the
obvious parallels between the two accounts (Worden, p. 58 and n.). However, the discovery of an
early MS recensionof Berkeley'smemoirs, enables this hypothesis to be assessedin the light of new
evidence; (for this MS, dated i662/3, see Dr Williams's Lib., Roger Morrice MS D, pp. 9-52).
This MS copy of Berkeley's memoirs contains a MS note dated '5 March i662r/3?]' by its
unidentified owner, that he had been given this book in Geneva by a man who did not understand
English (Dr Williams's Lib., Morrice MS D, p. 8). This establishes that Berkeley'smemoirs were
circulating in MS at Geneva at the time Ludlowe was there in i662. So there is no primafacie
reason to suppose Ludlowe's claim, that he had seen a copy 'left in the hands of a merchant of
Geneva', was one of Toland's fictitious interpolations. While one must still use Ludlowe's Memoirs
with caution, it is likely that the extent of Toland's bowdlerisation of the parts of the text dealing
with i647 is not as great as Dr Worden first supposed. Another MS fair copy is B.L., Add. MS
29869.
74 Salisbury's attendance is confirmed by an entry on 13 Aug. i647 in the Hatfield accounts
for the fortnightly reimbursalof sums expended by one of his gentlemen of the chamber; ?9 12S.
was paid to 'Mr Thornhill for my Lords Expences att Syon and elsewhere, when he went to the
Army'. Hatfield. A.. Box L/I.
20-2

the peers later declared their task to have been 'to advise his Ex[cellen]cy and
his Councell of War in such things as may be for the good of the Kingdome '.75
Immediately after these discussions Fairfax's regular Council of War
adopted the proposals as its endorsed programme for the settlement of the
kingdom, publishing them as the Heads of the Proposals.76
As the army moved ever closer towards London and was met by the
members of both Houses who had fled Westminster at a general rendezvous
at Hounslow Heath, Saye and Northumberland convened meetings of their
parliamentary colleagues, at Syon and 'Lord Sayes house at Stantwell' (about
five miles away), where tactics were mapped out in anticipation of their
restoration to Westminster.77 The result was the members' Declaration of 4
August, claiming that they, rather than the members remaining under 'duress'
at Westminster, constituted the true authority of parliament, and vigorously
asserting the justness of Fairfax's decision to march on London to restore
order.78 By 6 August, London's 'counter-revolution' had collapsed and the
army had occupied the capital. Riding in their coaches, Saye, North-
umberland and their fellow peers accompanied Fairfax's army in its trium-
phant procession through the city streets to the Palace of Westminster. Church
bells in the capital pealed in celebration.79 A new phase of parliamentary
politics, and of the politics of the army, had begun.80
In the light of this evidence - much of which was inaccessible to Gardiner
- it becomes highly unlikely that Ireton was the originator of this series of
proposals, as Gardiner and subsequent writers have supposed.8' John Wild-
man, who was involved in the debates on the proposals in a subcommittee of
the General Council of the Army, suspected that Ireton was merely acting as
7 Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68 (Nalson papers), fo. 35v (peers' decl. Of4 Aug. i647). Ludlowe,
who was among those who fled to the army, and was present at the Syon House meeting,
summarized their brief in similar terms: 'to consult what was most advisable to do in that
juncture'. Theparliamentary or constitutional
historyof England,24 vols. (I75i -62), XVI, 244. Memoirs
of EdmundLudlow,ed. Firth, i, i62.
76 The Headsof theProposals were later issued in a revised form with 'explanations' by the army
of what it considered was the meaning of certain passages in the original proposals. It is in this
form that they were printed by Rushworth in his HistoricalCollections, and later reprinted in S. R.
Gardiner's Theconstitutional documents of thepuritanrevolution,
i628-i660 (Oxford, I06), pp. 3 I6-26.
The best text for the Proposalsis H.L.R.O., MP 2 I /9/47, fos. 40-43 (signed by Rushworth). This
recension includes only the first sixteen 'heads' (printed in Gardiner, pp. 3i6-23); the additional
heads (Gardiner text, pp. 323-6, commencing at the paragraph 'And whereas there have been
of late... ') were a rag-bag of grievances and miscellaneous provisions which, although included
in the August printings of the Proposals (Thomason's copy dated 5 Aug., B.L., E 401/4, for
example), were never regarded as part of the Heads proper. Cf. Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 58, fos.
5I3 ff.
7 A PerfectDiurnall,no. 2Io (2-g Aug. i647), p. i688 (B.L., E 5i8/i6). For Stanwell see Victoria
countyhistory:Middlesex,III, 43.
78 Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68 (Nalson papers), fo. 35r-v. Old Parl. Hist., XVI, 244.
7 Westminster P.L., MS F4 (Church wdns' acc., St Martin's), p. 39; 5s. to 'The Ringers when
Sr Thomas Fairfax came to London with the Lords and Mr Speaker'.
80 Perfectoccurrencesof everydaieiournall,no. 52 (6-I3 Aug. I647), pp. 2IO-I I (B.L., E 5 I8/I7).
See also the description of the procession in Forde to [Hopton?], 9 Aug. i647; Bodl., MS
Clarendon 30, fo. 32.
81
S. R. Gardiner, History of thegreatcivilwari642-9,4 vols. (I893), III, 329-30.

broker for proposals which originated outside the army.82 He named the
'Cabinet Councill' in the lower House, with which Cromwell and Ireton
worked, as Fiennes, Vane, Pierrepont and Evelyn: a list which tallies with Sir
John Maynard's account of the members of the Commons involved in drafting
the proposals.83 Wildman found it highly suspicious that in the proposal on the
Court of Wards, as first presented by Ireton, the king was to confirm a grant
of Cio,ooo and Ci,ooo per annum to Saye and ?5,000 to Wharton's father-
in-law, Sir Rowland Wandesford, as compensation for the loss of their
respective places as Master and Attorney of the Court of Wards. Indeed, as
Wildman saw it, Saye was the principal beneficiary of the provision intended
to guarantee the king against loss of revenue: 'that caveat [in the Heads]
against the King's dammage made way for another against the Lord Saye's,
and the Lord Wharton's father [-in-law]'.84 Ireton acted as promoter of, and
apologist for, the proposals within the Council of War; but he was working to
a brief which originated among his political allies at Westminster: with his
former patron, Wharton, with Saye, and with their political allies in the
Commons - St John, Vane, Pierrepont, Evelyn and Nathaniel Fiennes.
II
From the resumption of the parliamentary session, the priority of the Saye-
Northumberland group which now controlled the Lords was to secure
parliament against further violent incursions: from royalist sympathizers,
from the unpaid reformadoes in the City, and from the well drilled bully-boys
who had been in the front line of the riots of 26July. The need for a settlement
of the kingdom was pressing, the peers argued in their Declaration of 4 August,
but this 'we conceive we can never do, untill the Houses of Parliament may
be absolute judges and masters of their own securities'.85 With twelve peers
attending the sitting of 6 August, and numbers seldom rising above that figure
until the following January, the nine peers of the Saye-Northumberland
group dominated proceedings and assumed the initiative in the introduction
of legislation into the parliament. The speed and efficiency with which they
deluged the lower House with bills and resolutions after their return to the
Lords suggests that the programme had been agreed upon by the peers in
advance. Wharton and Fairfax's cousin, the earl of Mulgrave, were despatched
to thank the Lord General for his timely intervention, while the remaining
82 John Lawmind [Wildman], Putneyproiects.Or the old serpent(I647), p. 15 (B.L., E 421/

'9).
Ibid. sig. F3. Beinecke Lib., MS Osborn Fb I55, fo. 239v.
83
[Wildman], Putneyproiects,sig. F 2[v]. For WandesfordseeJ. W. Clay, 'The gentry of Yorks.

84
at the time of the civil war', Yorks.Archaeol.journal, xXiiI (1915), 349-94. Wandesford had also
been Northumberland's nominee as a Commissionerof the Great Seal in Dec. i646. H.L.R.O.,
MP 24/12/46, fo. 78 (draft in Northumberland's hand); LU, IX, 626.
85 Declaration of the peers (signed by Manchester, Northumberland, Kent, Salisbury, Denbigh,
Mulgrave, Saye, Grey of Warke and Howard); original text: Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68, fo.
35r-v; printed in Old Parl. Hist. XVI, 241-4.

peers proceeded with a comprehensive agenda to secure the City and to seek
out the instigators of the violence.86 Fairfax was voted Constable of the Tower
with an unlimited commission to make whatever changes to its administration
he deemed necessary;87 the London Militia Committee was reconstituted as it
had been prior to 4 May and returned to the control of the peers' allies in the
City ;88 and a committee was established (including Saye, Wharton and
Northumberland) to investigate the management of the recent violence against
the Houses.89 With Denbigh, these three peers were appointed to prepare a
declaration, to be read at the head of every regiment, approving of Fairfax's
actions and affirming the common interest which united the parliament and
army. 90
In contrast to their smooth passage in the Lords, in the Commons these
measures met with open hostility. Conditions were imposed on Fairfax's
commission, restricting its duration to one year; his powers to order changes
to the government of the Tower were limited ;91 and the declaration approving
the army's march on London was deferred indefinitely.92 Most contentious of
the items sent from the Lords was, however, a bill to invalidate all the
proceedings in Parliament while it had been under duress: from the day of the
riots until the return of the Speakers.93 The bill had, at least for the peers'
opponents, profoundly disquieting implications. The effect of this ordinance
was to deprive all those who had any part in London's counter-revolution of
the indemnity that they might otherwise have claimed by invoking parlia-
ment's authority for their actions. This rendered not only rioters subject to
prosecution, but also Common Councillors, City Militia officers and members
of the Houses who had supported the resolution inviting the king to London,
or countenanced the City's preparations against the army.94 The severity of
the peers' attitude to these miscreants was exemplified by the earl of Kent
when he encountered a City Militia officer claiming parliamentary authority
for his service during the disorders. 'That was no Parliament', Kent stated
dogmatically, 'therefor could not Order him.'95 If passage of the bill em-
bodying this principle could be secured in the lower House, the threat of
proscription could be invoked against those members who had sat in the
Speakers' absence - the group most likely to oppose a settlement based on the
86 L, IX, 374-5; CJ, V, 268-9. 87 L, IX, 375; CJ, V,269.

88 L, IX, 374, 379; CJ, V, 269.
89
L], Ix, 375. The KingdomesWeeklyIntelligencer,no. 222 (I0-I7 Aug. I647), p.634 [recte
635]
E
(B.L., 402/I3) .
90 See also the 'Declaration of the Army' sent from the Lords to the house of commons on i o
Aug.: Bodl.Lib., MS Dep. c. I68 (Nalsonpapers),fos. II5, I I6-I 23v.
91 CJ, V, 269-70; L], IX, 380.
92 CJ, V, 269.
93 L], IX, 375; V, 269.
Cy,
94 L], IX, 374, 383; CJ, V, 268, 270.
96 The Moderne Intelligencer,
no. 3 (26Aug.-i Sept. I647), sig. C (B.L., E 405/I5). See also the
Lords' message to the Commons of I 3 Aug., that the City Militia officerscontinued to act 'under
pretence' of the order passed on the day of the riots, 'to the disturbance of the peace of the
p[ar]l[iament] and Citty'. Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68 (Nalson papers), fos. 45, 46v.

July proposals.96 The bill was thus an essential prerequisite if these proposals
were to be ratified in parliament.
Thinly disguised threats were applied by the peers when, after a week, the
Commons had made no progress with the bill. The Saye-Northumberland
group forwarded a copy of their declaration of 4 August, with a gloss by
Denbigh that the Lords 'hold themselves acquitted and discharged of any ill
consequence that may ensue upon such precedent and by that occasion of the
retardment of the present great affairs of the kingdome '.97 'The Lords send us
feirce messages', Salisbury's counsel, John Harington, noted in his diary for
this day.98 And when the Commons attempted to amend the bill, the peers
adhered defiantly to their original draft, insisting that all proceedings during
the Speakers' absence were void.99 Faced with the Lords' intransigence, a
majority in the Commons rejected the bill on Thursday, i 9 August. The tactics
employed by the peers to rescue this crucial bill illustrate the extent of their
influence with Fairfax and his officers, and the army's readiness to use its
political influence in support of the Lords' legislative programme.
Even before the bill was rejected on I9 August, with the measure unlikely
to pass in the Commons, the peers had enlisted Fairfax's willing support to
exert pressure against the organisers of obstruction in the lower House. In a
conspicuous display of unanimity between the army officers and the Saye-
Northumberland group in the Lords, a dinner was arranged for Thursday, the
igth, at the earl of Manchester's house in Chelsea.'00 Before this could take
place, however, on the Tuesday, the Commons respited the central section of
the declaration (drafted by Saye, Wharton, Northumberland and Denbigh)
which reiterated the principle that was to be given legislative force by the
bill: that during the disorders, the parliament was under duress, therefore its
proceedings were void.'0' The Commons' rejection of this central aspect of the
Lords' declaration was a clear signal that the bill was destined to fail; a change
in the peers' tactics was now imperative. For the oblique and convivial
demonstration of alliance with the peers implicit in the acceptance of Man-
chester's invitation to dine, Fairfax and the General Council of the Army
substituted an explicit statement of support for the Lords, cast in the form of
a Remonstrance.'02 'Difficulties and Dangers' persisted, Fairfax noted in his
96
KingdomesWeeklyIntelligencer,
no. 222 (I0-I7 Aug. I647), p. 634 [recte635] (B.L., E 402/
I3).
Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68 (Nalson papers), fos. 35, 43; LU, IX, 384.
97
Thediaryof JohnHarington,M.P. i646-53, ed. M. F. Stieg (Somerset Rec. Soc., vol. 74, I977),
98
pp. 56-7.
99
Cy, V, 275. Reasonsdeliveredby... the earleof Manchester: for nullingtheforc'd votes([20 Aug.]
I647), pp. 2-3 (B.L., E 403/2).
100 A continuation
ofcertainspeciall
andremarkable passages(I 4-2I Aug. I647), sig. H (B.L.,E 404/
5). The PerfectWeeklyAccount,no. 34 (I8-24 Aug. I647), sig. Kk2 [I] (B.L., E 404/I2).
101 C7, V, 273.
102 H.L.R.O., MP I8/8/47, fos.54-70v (original text); printed in Two lettersfromhis excellency
Sir ThomasFairfax (20 Aug. I647), B.L., E 402/28; and A remonstrance
from his excellency
([20 Aug.]
I647), B.L., E 402/30. Old Parl. Hist., xvi, 25I-73. See also, letter of intelligence to Lord
[Hopton?],I2 Aug. I647: Bodl.Lib., MS Clarendon30, fo. 36.

letter to Manchester accompanying the Remonstrance, 'notwithstanding the

late just and honourable Resolutions, proceedings and endeavours of the
Right Honourable House of Peers.'103 The Remonstrance stated the problem
bluntly: 'the House of Commons hath not onely not concurred with the Lords
in any of these things, but rather seeme to have cast them aside'"04 - a charge
which referred specifically to the Commons' reluctance to pass the bill to void
proceedings during the Speakers' absence.
Fairfax's letter and Remonstrance arrived too late to forestall the Commons'
rejection of the bill on the igth; but they served powerfully to concentrate the
minds of those who had formerly sought to oppose the bill.105 The full weight
of the army's authority was now placed behind the Lords' initiatives. Taking
advantage of the change in mood caused by Fairfax's announcement of support
for the Lords' legislative programme, Sir John Evelyn - one of Saye's close
allies in the Commons106 - introduced a new bill, in terms identical to the
Lords' bill, which was accepted with a minor proviso. Such co-ordination
between the peers and the Lord General enhanced the authority of the
Saye-Northumberland group in its dealings with the house of commons, but
at the expense of deep enmity among opponents of their policies, resentful that
so small a group of peers should exercise such a disproportionate influence in
politics. In the Commons, M.P.s inimical to the Lords, such as Edmund
Ludlowe (at least as printed by John Toland), viewed with cynicism the
generals' willingness to oblige their political masters in the upper House. 'Tho'
the Lords had been removed from the command of the army', Ludlowe
observed, ' yet it was manifest that their influence still continued: partly from
a desire of some great officers to oblige them, and partly from the ambition of
others to be of their number.'107
One obstacle, however, remained: the Scots Commissioners' insistence that
the Newcastle Propositions were the only programme for peace that had been
agreed upon by both nations - as demanded in the Covenant. To circumvent
the Scots' objections, the peers arbitrarily set a day for the old Newcastle terms
once more to be presented to the king.108 Saye and Wharton managed the
parliament's dealings with the commissioners, politely ignoring their demands
for further time in which to revise the propositions.109 7 September was set as
the day for their presentation to the king.110 Certain that these terms would
meet again with the king's refusal, the peers sought to point up the futility of
103 Fairfax to Manchester, i9 Aug. I647, printed in Two lettersfrom his excellency([20 Aug.]
I647), p. 2 (B.L., E 402/28).
104 A declarationof thelast demands byhis excellency
propouinded ([20 Aug.] I647), p. 3 (B.L., E 404/
3).
105 CJ, V,l279 106 Discussed below, p. 593.
107 Memoirsof EdmundLudlow,ed. Firth, I, I63. 108 L], IX, 4o8.

109 H.L.R.O., MP 7/9/47, fos. I47-I6iv. There are a number of minor variants between this
text, as presented to the king in Sept. I647, and the text of the Newcastle Propositions that
Gardiner printed (deriving his text from Rushworth). L, ix, 417, 422, 425, 428.
110 L, Ix, 413 (I Sept.).

persevering with the Newcastle Propositions as a basis for peace."' Predictably,

the king rejected the terms, with their insistence on a comprehensive settlement
of both kingdoms, proposing instead separate agreements for the two
realms."12 Saye had conferred with the king in person at the end ofJuly,"13 and
seems to have maintained communication with him subsequently, using the
royalist, John Ashbournham, as go-between in his efforts to retain the king's
support for the July proposals."4 By mid-August, 'among other concessions'
negotiated by Ashbournham, the king had agreed to nominate the two
secretaries of state from the Commons,"15 and it later became well known that
one of these places had been reserved for Saye's son Nathaniel."6 This
diplomacy bore fruit early the following month in the king's answer to the
stage-managed offer of the Newcastle terms."7 What one writer has termed
'Parliament's almost inexplicable offer', 18 was in fact Charles's cue to declare
his preference for the Heads of the Proposals:
to which proposals, as he conceives his two Houses not to be strangers, so he believes
they will think with him that they much more conduce to the satisfactionof all interests,
and may be a fitter foundation for a lasting peace, than the [Newcastle] Propositions
which are at this time tendered unto him."19
With this cachet of royal approval, on 21 September, Wharton formally
introduced the Heads of the Proposalsinto the Lords, in their form as ratified by
the army.120 In the process of transforming these 'Heads' into propositions
approved by both Houses, each of the clauses in the July proposals was
... So much so that in the text presented to the king, the peers did not even trouble to remove
the names of Holles, Stapleton, Glynne or Hunsdon (all impeached members) from the list of
Conservators of the Peace: H.L.R.O., MP 7/9/47, fo. I52V. Rushworth's text comes up with a
number of absurdities,such as a 'Sir [sic] Denzil Holles', which have found their way uncritically
into S. R. Gardiner's Theconstitutionaldocuments of thePuritanrevolution,I628-I660 (Oxford, I906),
p. 298.
Li, Ix, 435. Rushworth, Historical collections, 8 vols. (i68o-I70I), IV, i, 309-I7.
113 Letter of intelligence, 2 Aug. I647: Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24.
114
Opponents of the July proposals attempted to cut this line of communication between
Saye's group at Westminster and the king's 'Court', by moving that Ashbournham be removed
from attendance on the king; not surprisingly Saye vigorously (and successfully) opposed this
attempt tojeopardize the projected settlement. Sir Edward Forde to Lord Hopton, 28 Sept. I647:
Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 76v. See also below, p. 596.
115 Guildford Muniment Room, Surrey, Bray MS 85/5/2/29: 'Robert Thomson senior'
[Nicholas Oudart, the king's secretary] to Sir Edward Nicholas, i6 Aug. I647.
116 Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. I70 (Nalson papers), fos. I8Iv, I92V, I93r-v. Cf. VoxMilitaris, no.
5 (I4-2i Nov. I648), p. 35 (B.L., E 473/8). 117 Ashbournham, Narrative (I830), II, 98.
118 Ivan Roots, The great rebellion i642-i660 (London, I966), p. I I6. 119 L, IX, 434-5.
120
L], IX, 441; CJ, V, 31I. H.L.R.O., MP 2I/9/47, fos. 40-43. Wharton had introduced the
draft of the proposalsto the Lords on 20 July; A PerfectSummary of ChiefePassagesin Parliament,no.
[I] (I9-26July I647), p. 5 (B.L., E 5I8/9). Another copy was introduced into the Commons by
Povey in September: Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 58, fos. 5I3 if. The introduction of the Proposals
coincided with the passage of a resolution that the king's reply to the Newcastle Propositions,
tendered at Hampton Court, constituted a rejectionof the terms. Lj, IX, 442. Perhapssignificantly,
it was Evelyn who brought this resolution from the Commons to the Lords; ibid. For Evelyn's
relations with the Saye-Northumberland peers, see below, p. 593.

introduced in the house of lords. Formulated in committee by the Saye-

Northumberland group, these propositions, based on the July proposals, were
accepted unanimously by the peers, and defined in detail the religious and
political settlement these peers sought to impose in the aftermath of the first
civil war.
III
If five years of internecine conflict had left the country weary of war, they had
also left the ideological conflicts within the nation more starkly delineated
than ever before. Conciliation of the vanquished, as much as satisfaction of the
victors, was the prerequisite of a lasting, national, peace. The natural first
objective of the drafting committee was thus to expand the basis of support for
the settlement within the kingdom. Penalties against former royalists were
mitigated and the range of religious interests to be comprehended within the
English church was widened. Under the Newcastle Propositions, 58 principal
royalists - most of the king's Council, generals and advisers - were to be
condemned for treason before any Act of Oblivion was passed. The Saye-
Northumberland peers drastically reduced this number: from 58 to 7 royalists,
and financial penalties against royalists were also lessened.121 The severity of
fines against royalist 'delinquents' had been a long-standing source of con-
tention between the two Houses. Peers such as Northumberland and Howard
had become notorious for influencing committees to mitigate the penalties
against repentant delinquents.'22 In the proposals introduced by the Lords,
the maximum rate for confiscation of principal royalists' estates was reduced
from two-thirds to one-third; rates to be imposed upon lesser fry were scaled
down proportionately.123 As the Lords pointed out at the time, these rates for
fines were drawn directly from 'those votes which are passed by this House,
mentioned in the Proposals of the Army, concerning the proportions that
delinquents shall be set at', but which had remained dormant in the Com-
mons.124 To this extent, then, there was nothing original in the draft proposal on
delinquents that Ireton had first put to the General Council of the Army
between I 7-I9 July. In this central aspect of the Heads of the Proposals, Ireton
had merely secured the army's endorsement for what was then dormant
legislation which the Saye-Northumberland group had formerly moved in the
Lords. 125
Perhaps the most striking feature of the projected settlement was the
proposal for settlement of the church. Reflecting the Erastian Independency
121
H.L.R.O., MP 8/I0/47, fo. i i i; L_t,Ix, 476; Gardiner, Constitutional
documents,
pp. 298-9.
H.L.R.O., MP I5/IO/47, fos. I64-7.
122
For Manchester's lenient attitude see P.R.O., SP I6/593/56/25 (Samuel Jones's examina-
tion); see also, Add. MS 34253 (Main Papers, strays), fo. 42; Claydon House, Verney MS, earl of
Devonshire to Verney, 23 Oct. i645 (B.L., Film 636/6); H.L.R.O., MP 20/2/47, fo. 57; Lj, ix,
26; Dorset to Middlesex, 3I Jan. i647: Kent A.O., Sackville MS, U 269/C248 unfol. For
Northumberland, Sir Percy Herbert to Lady Herbert [i644]; P.R.O., PRO 30/53/7 (Herbert
of Cherbury corr.), fo. 58.
123 Li, Ix, 476. 124 LU, IX, 48i. Heads, xv, 2.
125 A proposal to exclude from pardon only '6 or 4' had been under discussion as early as I
April; letter of intelligence, Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 29, fo. i65.

advocated by Saye and Wharton in the debates on church government since
I 644,126 the bill was introduced by Saye on I 3 October, basing his draft on the
religious provisions of the July proposals.'27 It maintained a national presby-
terial church under parliamentary control, but the Lords also provided for
toleration of Independent congregations and moderate Anglicans who wished
to form churches outside this presbyterial structure and exempt from its
discipline.128 In the meantime, the Commons, probably getting wind of
remarkable developments in the upper House, passed a resolution guaran-
teeing the economic security of the Presbyterian parochial clergy, by ordering
that tithes could only be paid to ministers who conformed to the Presbyterian
church established by parliament. The Lords counter-attacked, and on the
I 5th Saye reported a revised version of the bill, redrafted to include a detailed
provision for the reallocation of tithes, directly challenging the Commons'
resolution. Under the terms of Saye's revised bill, tithes were to continue to be
paid to Presbyterian incumbents, exceptwhere the minister and a major part
of the parishioners agreed that they should be applied in part to some other
minister or lecturer.'29 Lay patrons of impropriate livings were free to appoint
a minister of whatever religious complexion they preferred, as long as an
allowance was provided by the patron to maintain an assistant or curate who
conformed to the Presbyterian establishment. Henceforth, Independency
would co-exist with a nominally Presbyterian national church. The only
doctrines deemed heterodox were popery and heresies which attacked the first
fifteen of the Thirty-Nine Articles.130 No one was to be prosecuted for his failure
to attend parish services if he could show 'a reasonable Cause for his absence
or that he was present to hear the word of God expounded to him else-
where'. '131
Embodied in the legislation were two essential aspects of Saye's religious
thought; that beyond ensuring order and punishing blasphemy the state had
no brief to police men's thoughts: and that congregations, 'being organical
and compleat in themselves', were free to choose their ministers and forms of
worship.'32 There was nothing to prevent the use of the Book of Common
126 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS xvi, fos. 55-57v. Westminster Public Lib., MS F
2002, fos. 144-5. Adamson, 'The peerage in politics', pp. 82-104.
127 The text of this I3 October draft is given verbatim in The ModerateIntelligencer, no. 134
(7-14 Oct. I647), pp. 1319-20, and was later published in A PerfectDiurnall(I I-I8 Oct. 1647),
sig. io 0 [iv] (B.L., E 5I8/45). It is so accurate that the editor of The ModerateIntelligencer
(who
printed it first) must have had access to the MS original.
128 H.L.R.O., MP I5/I0/47, fos. I62-3. The Househad debatedthe proposalsin committee
on the I2th; Kingdomes WeeklyIntelligencer, no. 230 (I2-I9 Oct. I647), p. 694 (B.L., E 4I I/I I). LU,
IX, 48I, 484. (The journal does not record who introduced the bill on the I3th, but notes Saye
managing and reporting the bill on the I5th, indicating Saye almost certainly as the draftsman
of the bill.)
129 H.L.R.O., MP I5/10/47, fos. I62V-I63.
130 The Commons later modified this, excluding Article viii (the section enjoining the Nicene,
Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds) from the list defining the principles of religion. CI, v, 333.
131 Ibid.
132
[Saye], Vindiciaeveritatis(I654), pp. I22-3. For a discussion of the authorship of this tract,
see J. S. A. Adamson, 'The VindiciaeVeritatisand the Political Creed of Viscount Saye and Sele',
HistoricalResearch,6o (I987), 45-53.

Prayer,133 but the old episcopal order was to be eradicated. Included in the
Lords' programme for settlement were two bills, introduced by Saye, to be
presented for the king's assent: for the abolition of bishops, and for the sale of
their lands.'34 The inclusion of these particular bills in Saye's programme for
settlement corroborates Maynard's evidence that Saye had been co-author of
the first (July) draft of the proposals, for which Ireton had acted as broker in
the General Council of the Army.135 The bills on episcopacy and bishops' lands
had been part of that original draft, but were subsequently deleted in the
General Council.136 Similarly, in the proposition dealing with royalists, the
Lords had decided to exclude seven delinquents from pardon - the number
stipulated in the original draft of the proposals137 - whereas this number was
reduced to five after the proposals were presented to the king on 23 July and
debated in the General Council of the Army.138 The probable explanation for
these discrepancies is that since Saye and Wharton no longer had to rely on
the army to present their proposals to the king, they reverted to their original
July recension as the basis for the terms of settlement, reinstating the original
provisions on episcopacy and delinquents which had been deleted after Ireton
first showed the scheme to the General Council on I 7 July.139
While these measures were being debated in the Commons, Saye and
Wharton introduced the remainder of their programme, derived point by
point from the first draft of the July proposals.140 The king's executive powers
were to be stringently limited. 'He himself hath brought this necessity upon
us ', Saye argued, 'not to trust him with that power whereby he may do us and
himself hurt, but with so much alone as shall be sufficient to inable him to do
us good.'141 For ten years the parliament was to choose the great officers of
state; after which time the king was to be allowed to choose one of three
parliamentary nominees. The militia was to be under parliament's control for
133
H.L.R.O., MP I5/I0/47, fos. I62-3v. Saye's pre-war objections to the Prayer Book were
directed against its enforcement as the only approved mode of worship: it was as if 'because some
men had need to make use of Crutches, all men should be prohibited the use of their legges'. Saye,
Two speechesin parliament(I64I), p. io. Saye had no doctrinal or theological objection to the use
of the Prayer Book; indeed, according to John Williams, the bishop of Lincoln, 'ye L[ord] Say
hath joined with him in his Chappell in all ye Prayers and Services of the Church'. B.L., Harl.
MS 6424 (Warner's diary), fo. 45. 134 LU, Ix, 483.
135 Beinecke, MS Osborn Fb I55, fo. 239r-v.
136 [Wildman], Putneyproiects.Or, theold serpent(i 647), p. I4.
137
H.L.R.O., MP 8/I0/47, fo. i i i. L_, IX, 476. Dr Williams's Lib., Morrice MS D (Berkeley
memoirs) printed as Sir John Berkeley, Memoirs(i 699), p. 3I. [Wildman], Putneyproiects,pp.
I 3-I 5.
138Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. i68, fos. 36-42V. This MS copy of the Heads, signed by Rushworth,
contains a number of modifications which attest to the accuracy of Wildman's account of the
preparation of the text. Cf. fo. 38v, where the reference to 'ten years' as the period for which
royalists were to be excluded from office has been crossed out and reduced to five; compare
Wildman, Putneyproiects(I647), p. I4, where he states that the proposal originally stipulated ten
years, but that this was later changed to five after the Heads had been presented to the king.
Gardiner, Civil war, iII, 340.
139 Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS LXV (Army Council, Min.), fo. io6.
140
H.L.R.O., MP I5/10/47, fos. I60-3. L_, IX,, 482-4. A PerfectDiurnall,no. 22I (I8-25 Oct.
I646), sig. io P (B.L., E 5I8/47).
141
[Saye], Vindiciaeveritatis,p. 6.

the next twenty years and thereafter the king was to be permitted only a
vestigial right of participation ;142 for, even after the twenty years had expired,
the king was to remain subject to parliamentary veto in any directives given
to the militia.143 Likewise, the Lords established a 'Council of State' to
superintend the militia during the intermissions of parliament - a provision
drawn directly from the July proposals.144 Any hopes the king might have had
of controlling parliament through the creation of a caucus of royalist peers
were thwarted by a provision disabling peers, created since May I642, from
sitting in the Lords unless they had been first approved by both Houses.145
The other aristocratic co-author of the proposals, Lord Wharton, was
equally prominent in presenting them as legislation to the House. Wharton
managed a series of three proposals (also drawn from the July draft) providing
for the interval after the king's expected agreement to the projected settlement. 146
Restoration of the king was to follow immediately upon his agreement to
the concessions demanded. No proceedings were to be pursued against the
queen, and the king was to be guaranteed the traditional royal revenues.147
The draft of the Act of Oblivion, introduced by Wharton, continued the policy
of leniency and reconciliation towards royalists: the only category to suffer
political disabilities were those who had been in arms against parliament, and
even here, leniency was the hallmark of the bill. Exclusion from public office
for five years and from participation at Westminster until the end of the next
parliament, were the extent of the penalties imposed against royalists-in-
arms. 148 To complete the scheme, Saye introduced three uncontroversial
clauses, common to most peace proposals since I644: the king's declarations
142 Heads, II, I (dealing with the militia) differslittle from the militia provision in the Newcastle
propositions: both give the control of the militia permanently to parliament, only differing on the
time during which the king is to be excluded from even a nominal right of participation. Gardiner,
Constitutionaldocuments,pp. 294, 3I9; H.L.R.O.,MP 2 I/9/47, fo. 4I. The onlysignificantaddition
made in the Heads is that parliament was ceded the power to 'nominate and appoint' all officers
and commanders of the forces. This was duly added by the peers in October, when, enacting
Heads ii, I, they stipulated that parliament 'shall from time to time appoint all Comanders and
Officers for the said Forces, or remove them as they shall see cause'. H.L.R.O., MP [4/Io]/47,
fo. 59; mentioned, but not entered, at L_, IX, 467.
143 The text of the Heads printed by Rushworth and duplicated by Gardiner contains the
significant variant that these parliamentary restrictions on the exercise of royal power were to
apply only to 'the King's Majesty that now is'; that is, the position of the king's successorwas left
unspecified (Gardiner, p. 3I9). On this question Saye's October propositions were more explicit
than the Heads, though not inconsistent with their letter. (The house of lords' copy of the MS
omits 'that now is' in this clause, inserting it in a later clause (' ...hereafter by his said Majesty
that now is') but withoutchangeof meaning:H.L.R.O., MP 21/9/47, fo. 41.)
144 Heads, III; H.L.R.O., MP 21/9/47, fo. 4Iv. MP 15/10/47, fo. i6i. The Commons disliked
this name, preferringthe designation 'Co[mmi] ttees of Both Howses of Parlem[en]t': ibid. fo. I6 I.
It is possible this bill also gave the Council of State powers over foreign relations, as provided for
in the Heads; in the absence of a full text of the bill this question must remain open.
145
H.L.R.O., MP I5/I0/47, fo. i6o; enacts Heads, v.
146
L_U,Ix, 482, 483, 484; Heads, I. Wharton's proposal is summarized in A PerfectDiurnall,no
22I (I8-25 Oct. I647), sig. I0 P, p. I774 (B.L., E 5I8/47).
147 H.L.R.O., MP 2I/9/47, fo. 42; Heads, xiv; in practice, however, the king's access to these
revenues would have been severely checked by the patronage network established by the Saye-
Northumberland group in the Exchequer. 148 L], IX, 484; enacts Heads, xvi.

and his grants under the Great Seal at Oxford were invalidated; and the
royalists' cessation with the Irish rebels was declared void.149It is perhaps a
measure of how near the Lords thought they were to concluding a lasting
peace that among the bills introduced by Wharton, based on the July
proposals, was one providing for the dissolution of the Long Parliament and
for the election of its successor.'50
Significantly, the same peers who promoted this settlement in October I 647
had been the group identified as its instigators back in July. By the end of their
day's work on I 5 October, the Lords had transformedthe July proposals into
'sixteen papers' endorsed by the House, ready to be forwarded to the
Commons. Of the ten peers present that day, eight had attended the meeting
at Syon House on 31 July.151Saye and Wharton, who managed the proposals
in Committee and reported them to the House, were the two peers most active
in the preparation of the original draft and in canvassing support for it in the
two weeks before the July riots.
Much of this scheme sustained alterations of detail in the lower House;
however it was on the issues of religion and the treatment of royalists that the
Commons joined battle with the Lords. The peers' bill on delinquents was
rejected outright; but, in what was becoming a familiar tactic, a new bill was
substituted in the Commons, retaining the Lords' principal demand that only
seven royalists be excluded from the Act of Oblivion.152Although there was
a subsequent compromise on rates of confiscation in this new bill, as ThePerfect
WeeklyAccountcorrectly noted, the Commons merely 'concurred with a paper
[formerly] sent down from the Lords'.153
Saye's bill on religion was accepted after a series of narrowly fought
divisions, but the Commons baulked at allowing tithes to be used for the
maintenance of other than conforming Presbyterian clergy.154 Congregations'
liberty to allocate a moiety of their tithes to the support of a lecturer or other
non-Presbyterian cleric had been an essential element of the peers' bill,
149
H.L.R.O., MP I5/IO/47, fos. i6ov-i6ir; Heads x, vii.
150
L7, Ix, 482 (i4 Oct. i647). The draft bills are missing from the Main Papers but some of
their content may be gleaned from references to these bills in the Journals, and in the Perfect
Diurnall,whose editor seems to have had access to the Lords' drafts. 'Lord Wharton reported a
draught of a proposition for putting a period to this Parliament and a proposition concerning
justices of the Peace and Grand Jury men,' L_, IX, 482. The first of Wharton's bills is described
in the CJ as 'concerning the period of this Parliament, and the sitting of those future', C?I,v, 338
(2I Oct. i647). These two bills almost certainly enacted Heads, i, I-7, dealing with elections; and
Heads i, i i, dealing with J.P.s and Grand Juries at assizes. The C? entry suggests that Wharton's
bill changed the duration of parliaments from the three-year term established under the Triennial
Act to some other term. This probably followed the July proposals in establishing biennial
parliaments. A PerfectDiurnallrefersto the Lords' bill as providing for the dissolution of the Long
Parliament within a year 'after the Act for a triennial Parliament'; ibid. no. 22I (i8-25 Oct.
I647), p. 1774 (B.L., E 5i8/47). L'' , IX, 483.
152
LU7,IX, 499, 503, 504, 506-7. C7, V, 337, 346, 348.
153 The PerfectWeeklyAccount,no. 42 (20-26 Oct. i647), sig. R[v]. See also, The Kingdomes
WeeklyIntelligencer,no. 23 I (9I -26 Oct. I 647), p. 705, (B.L., E 4 I I / 26).
154 L, IX, 506-7; CJ, v, 348. A PerfectDiurnall,no. 220 (i i-i8 Oct. I647) sig. io 0 [iv] (B.L.,
E 5i8/45)-

designed to weaken the monopoly on secure clerical incomes enjoyed by
conforming Presbyterian incumbents.'55 In what appears to have been an
organized compromise, the Lords agreed to maintain financial penalties
against delinquents at their present rates; and the following day, 2 November,
the Commons capitulated to the Lords' demand for the redistribution of
tithes."56
The reforms of the church sponsored by the Lords would have amounted to
the greatest alteration to religious life in England since the 1550s. If the
Presbyterian establishment existing in I647 was, as Baillie complained, 'but a
lame Erastian Presbytery', it was the Saye-Northumberland group which had
done the most in parliament to ensure that lameness. Although perhaps only
Saye among his parliamentary allies had a specific doctrinal preference for
Independency, the Saye-Northumberland group's common hostility to the
claims of the 'High Presbyterians' - that the Presbytery was the only form of
church government sanctioned lure divino- made them a natural focal point
for the hopes of dissenters. Non-conformists looked to the Saye-North-
umberland group to be the initiators and supporters of reform. Three weeks
after the group assumed control of the Lords, in August I647, John Cooke, a
puritan lawyer from Gray's Inn, apostrophised the House, imploring it to
remove the yoke of Presbyterian conformity.
I would but humbly beg from that noble body [the house of lords], those great luminaries
of State, that as their Lordships and their noble Families are exempted from the
PresbyterianDiscipline,so they would be nobly pleased to dispense with such who, with
any quiet of conscience, cannot conform thereunto; that no co-active violence may be
offered to such as be religious and peaceable in their differences.157
Cooke's appeal is the more significant for his close associations with the military
and parliamentary groups that were the sponsors of the projected settlement.
Until I646, Cooke had served as steward and counsel to Saye's friend, the ist
earl of Mulgrave; (Saye's use of Mulgrave's proxy had been crucial in the
divisions on the establishment of the New Model Army in i645).158 After
Mulgrave's death in I646, Cooke had sought the patronage of the earl's
grandson (and fellow member of Gray's Inn), Sir Thomas Fairfax.159 And by
August I647, when he wrote this plea to the Lords, he was in the pay of the
Lord General.160
155 H.L.R.O., MP I5/I0/47, fo. i62r-v. 156 L, IX, 499, 506-7. C], V, 346, 348.
157 John Cooke, Redintegratio amoris([27 Aug.] I647), p. 28 (B.L., E 404/29).
158 For Saye's use of Mulgrave's proxy see Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Thejournalsof all theparliaments
during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (I682), p. 7 (D'Ewes was employed to draw up the instrument
revoking the appointment of Saye as Mulgrave's proctor). I owe this reference to the kindness of
Mr Peter Salt.
159 John Cooke, The vindication of the professors and profession of law (1 646), pp. 8o-i.
160 Chequers Court, Bucks, MS 782 (copies of William Clarke's accounts), fo. 43. These are
disbursements ordered by Fairfax in his capacity as commander-in-chief. (The originals are
Leeds, Thoresby Society MS SD, Ix; I am grateful to Professor Austin Woolrych for information
on this point.) The Redintegratioamoris is a detailed apologia for the July proposals, and contains
a lengthy defence of the importance of the house of lords. Cooke received (I 5 on 27 July I647 (the

The new ecclesiastical regimen established a church structure consisting of

two tiers: a national church regulated by parliamentary statute (to be
Presbyterian for the next three years), but without powers to enforce its
jurisdiction upon non-attenders; and beside this were to be lecturers and
ministers whose maintenance depended on the degree of support they enjoyed
within the parish. In impropriate livings where the patron was not a con-
forming Presbyterian, the state church would have taken second place, with
the patron deciding the denomination of the parish, but providing an addi-
tional stipend for a curate to hold services in conformity with the established
church :161 a parochial application of the maxim cuius regio, eius religio. 'This
may seem strange for a time', John Cooke admitted, 'but will quickly be
embraced by all honest men.'162 Feigning puzzlement, Marchamont Nedham
complained that he was at a loss for the right epithet with which to describe
the Lords' proposed settlement of the church: 'whether Protestant, Popish, or
Turkish; for if any one were pitch't upon, it were a sin against Liberty of
Conscience;and rather than intrench so upon the Copyholdof the Brethren, [the
Lords] are ready for new Alteration every moment'.63
day after the riots broke out at Westminster), and it is possible that the Redintegratio, which
appeared four weeks later to the day, was the result of a commission from the Lord General. The
entry in Clarke's accounts (Chequers MS 782, fo. 43) is for 'extraordinary service' - that is, not
for the legal work in which he would normally have been employed - and this may refer to the
Redintegratio. In any event, Cooke's links with the General Council of the Army were extremely
closer after Pride's purge, Cooke was appointed solicitor at the king's trial. G. E. Aylmer, The
state s servants (I973), pp. 30, 276. 161 H.L.R.O., MP I5/IO/47, fo. i62r-v.
162 John Cooke, What the independentswould have, or, a character (i647), p. i6.
"'Merc[urius] Prag[maticus], no. 8 (2-9 Nov. i647), p. 58 (B.L., E 4I3/8). In allowing for the
maintenance of lecturers out of tithes, the Saye-Northumberland peers established the validity of
a principle which had been declared illegal in the case of the Feoffees of Impropriations in
i632 - a scheme to use tithes from impropriate livings purchased by the feoffees to support puritan
lecturers. P.R.O., E II2/2II/533 (Exchequer, King's Rem., bills), printed in I. M. Calder, ed.,
Activities of thepuiritanfaction of the churchof Eniglandi625-33 (I 95 7). Most of the feoffees were closely
associated, by patronage or employment, with the Saye-Northumberland peers who sponsored
this legislation in i647. Most prominent among the clerical feoffees were Saye's two proteges and
life-long friends from St Stephen's, Coleman Street; Richard Sibbes and John Davenport. For
Sibbes, see P. S. Seaver, The puritan lectureships: the politics of religious dissent I566-i662 (Stanford,
Cal., I970), pp. 236-7. The clearest evidence of Saye's relationship with Davenport comes in a
letter written by Davenport to Thomas Temple on hearing that Saye had not long to live. He
wrote of' my Euer Honoured, Lord, Viscount, Say and Sele, unto whom I haue bene Continually,
Neare 40 years Past, Exceedingly Obliged, for sundry Testimonyes of his Speciall ffauors towardes
me when I liued in London, and I was in Holland, and after my retturne thence to london And
since my abode in this Wildernesse [Massachusetts], which hath bine aboue 24 Yeares'. Davenport
to Temple, I 9 Aug. i 66 i: P.R.O. (Kew), CO I / I 5/8 i; printed in Letters of John Davenportpuritan
divine, ed. I. M. Calder (New Haven, Conn. 1937), pp. I90-4. Of the lawyers among the feoffees
were Saye's friend, Christopher Sherland, the counsel to the Providence Island Company
(P.R.O., E II2/211/533; Calder, Puritan faction, pp. 39-42; Hexter, The reign of King Pym
(Cambridge, Mass., I940), p. 82; Russell, Parliaments and English politics, i62i-i629 (Oxford,
I979), pp. 3I, 251-2, 407-8); Samuel Browne, Northumberland's counsel and later Salisbury's
steward (P.R.O., SP i6/5I5/I46/I; Calder, Puritanfaction, pp. 42, 145-7); and in their suit in the
Exchequer, the feoffees were defended by William Lenthall, Northumberland's counsel in that
court and a close friend of Lord Wharton. For Lenthall as Northumberland's counsel see, e.g.
P.R.O., E I25/25 (Exchequer of Pleas, Decree Bks), fos. 33I-2V; for his role in the feoffees' case,
Calder, Puritanfaction, pp. 4, 26n, 73 (printing P.R.O., E I13/2I /533). Lincoln's Inn Adm., I, 234;

But the settlement did not seek simply to gratify the aspirations of puritans
and Independents. While the settlement, as drafted by Saye, abolished the
wealth, legal status and jurisdiction of the episcopate, it recognized that
worship according to the Prayer Book was deeply rooted in parish life and
resilient against attempts at eradication: hence there was no attempt to forbid
the use of the Book of Common Prayer. Proscription of religious practices
which did not disturb the peace of the state only fomented the divisions it
sought to eradicate, Saye argued; and such attempts lacked any moral
foundation since no form of church government could be shown to be iure
divino.164
Iv
Translating these proposals into reality required, in Lilburne's phrase, the
'juggling' of several volatile and potentially mutually hostile interests. Imple-
mentation depended upon careful management in the Commons, maintaining
the support of the army (which had custody of the king), and, in its final stage,
persuading the king to accept the terms offered - or imposing them upon him.
Juggling these diverse components revealed both the virtuosity, and ulti-
mately, the limitations of Saye's political designs. Throughout the debates,
Saye's second son, Nathaniel Fiennes, acted as his advocate in the Commons,
co-ordinating support for the Lords' legislation with the collaboration of other
allies of the Saye-Northumberland group: Evelyn, Pierrepont, the younger
Vane, Ireton and Cromwell. Fiennes's aristocratic patrons enhanced his status
in the Commons by ensuring his appointment to the influential executive
committees to which much parliamentary business was delegated. It was
Fiennes, Sir William Waller claimed,165 who acted as tame draftsman for the
Lords who gathered at Saye's house at Stanwell during the July disorders.166
In August, Northumberland recommended that Fiennes be added to the
Army Committee - a body, chaired by the earl's secretary, Robert Scawen,
which was responsible for the parliament's relations with the army com-
manders.167 Saye was reported to have 'bespoken [him] a place' on the
Committee of Revenue (the most powerful of the finance committees, control-
ling the Exchequer and royal household appointments), which was run by a
familiar contingent of peers: Saye, Wharton, Northumberland, Salisbury and
Pembroke. One newsbook dryly observed that it made little difference which
of Saye's parliamentary siblings was pronmoted to the vacancy: 'no matter
which of them it is, for both may doe well, enough with their Father's [Money]
Baggs '*168
B.L., Sloane MS I5I9 (misc. corr.), fo. I04. As patrons and protectors of these advocates of
puritan lectureships it was natural that Saye, Wharton. Northumberland and Salisbury should be
looked to in I647 to be the sponsors of godly reformation.
164
[Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, pp. I22, I29.
165 Waller, Vindication, p. I92.
166
A Perfect Diurnall, no. 2IO (2-9 Aug. I647), p. i688 (B.L., E 5I8/I6).
167
L, Ix, 444 (22 Sept. I647)-
168
Merc. Prag., no. 9 (9-I6 Nov. i647), pp- 70-471] (B.L., E 4I4/15)-

Fiennes assumed the chairmanship of the committee investigating the July

disorders,'69 employing as its solicitor a protege of Saye's from the Court of
Wards, Gabriel Beck.170 This committee became particularly influential in
December I 647, when, in an attempt to rig the forthcoming City elections, the
peers introduced a draconian new bill to disqualify from election any person
involved in the disorders during the Speakers' absence.171 The activities of
Fiennes' committee dovetailed neatly with the import of the peers' bill: under
the legislation, supporters of London's 'counter-revolution' were to be exclu-
ded from City government; and it was the task of Fiennes's committee to draw
up the lists of those against whom this proscription would apply. On the re-
establishment of the Derby House Committee in I648 (also dominated by the
Saye-Northumberland faction), the three members added to its number -
further consolidating the group's influence - were the earl of Kent, Sir John
Evelyn and Fiennes.172 In the days immediately following the sending of the
Lords' proposals to the Commons, when the acceptance of the scheme
depended upon assiduous management in the lower House, Fiennes made
regular trips from the Commons' chamber to the Court of Requests, to confer
there with Saye on tactics. Marchamont Nedham reported on these mid-
October assignations:
And that you may know how this Wheele[the Lords' management of the proposals]
moves in the Lower House too, you are to understand that Nath. Fiennes (my Lord
Say's own Son) uses upon all such good occasions to give his Lordshipa meeting in the
where the two Twins of valour use to compare Notes.173
Courtof Requestsat Westminster,
As late as I658, Fiennes was still regarded as a man 'much steered by Old
Subtilty, his father who lies in his Den'.174 The two were not above enlisting
the moral coercion that could be exerted within Independent congregations to
overcome the opposition of brethren in the General Council of the Army, who
were less than pleased at Fairfax's support for the peers' terms of settlement.
Major Francis White, an officer with Leveller sympathies, remonstrated to
Fairfax that 'My Lord Saye's sonne inform[ed] a member of M[aste]r
169 CJ, V, 332. He was added with Evelyn and the Revenue Committeeman, Thomas Hodges:
A Perfect Summaryof Chiefe Passages in Parliament, no. 7 (30 Aug.-6 Sept. i647), p. 53 (B.L., E 5i8/
28).
170 Four M.P.s were added to this committee on I Sept.; Fiennes and Evelyn; and two members
of the Committee of Revenue, Sir William Armyne and Thomas Hodges. CJ, v, 288. LU7,Ix, 58i.
Beck was another of the Lincoln's Inn network that was associated with Saye and Wharton (which
included Browne, StJohn, Fiennes, Lenthall and others). He was a Gloucestershire man, and may
have been employed by Saye in estate business. Lincoln's Inn Adm. I, 2 I 8. Aylmer, The state's servants,
pp. 4i8-ig. CJ, V, 45I-2. B.L., Add. MS 37344 (Whitelocke's Annals), fo. I32. Merc. Prag., no.
6 (I9-26 Oct. i647), p. 42 (B.L., E 4II/23).
171 H.L.R.O., MP I7/I2/47 (original Lords' draft); final version, LU7,Ix, 58i.
172 UL_,ix, 662. For Kent's associations with the Saye-Northumberland group see, The Moderne
Intelligencer, no. 3 (26 Aug.-i Sept. i647), sig. C (B.L., E 405/I5).
173 Merc. Prag., no. 6 (Ig-26 Oct. i647), p. 44 (B.L., E 4I I/23). For the use of the Court of
Requests for political meetings see Denzell Holles, A grave and learned speech. Or an apology delivered
([20July] i647), p. 6 (B.L., E 399/14).
174 A second narrative of the late parliament (i 658), reprinted in Phoenix Britaninicus,ed. J. Morgan
(I732), pp. I25 ff.; quote at p. I46.

Goodwins Church that all things went on very well, and that there was but
one man opposed, which he named to be my selfe'.175 John Goodwin, to whose
congregation Fiennes had made known Major White's obstructiveness, was
closely associated with the dissenting brethren in the Assembly of Divines who
enjoyed Saye's protection.176
SirJohn Evelyn of Wiltshire, who co-ordinated his support for the projected
settlement in consultation with Fiennes, had been a regular collaborator of the
Saye-Northumberland peers. A friend of Lord Brooke,177 Evelyn shared a
similar religious outlook to Saye's,178 and was responsible for securing the
Commons' approval for Saye's controversial provision for the re-apportion-
ment of tithes.179 Evelyn had won a 'very difficult devision', Salisbury's
steward, John Harington, noted in May I 647, inducing the Commons to agree
to the Lords' nominee for the vacant governorship of St Nicholas's Hos-
pital.180 Likewise, he managed Saye's bill to recoup the arrears owing to the now
defunct Court of Wards, by which Saye and his allies stood to profit hand-
somely: Saye as Master; Wharton's father-in-law, Wandesford, as Attorney;
and Saye's friend Colonel Charles Fleetwood, as Receiver.181 When, later, the
Lords moved for the presentation of four major propositions to the king as the
precondition for a 'personal treaty', Evelyn acted as teller in favour of the
peers' suggestion, paired with another aristocratic ally in the Commons,
Northumberland's nephew, Algernon Sidney.182
Evelyn's son-in-law, William Pierrepont, was as much a client of the earl of
Northumberland as he was a collaborator of Nathaniel Fiennes.183 'He will
175 Francis White, A copy of a letter ([ii Nov.] i647), pp. I-2 (B.L., E 4I3/I7). The incident
referred to took place around September of that year. White had been expelled from the General
Council of the Army for suggesting there was no authority left in the state 'but the sword'; but
he was readmitted in December. A declarationfiom his excellencie (9 Sept. i647), B.L., E 5i8/30.
Clarke papers, ed. Firth, I, lvii.
176 For other examples of contacts between Goodwin's congregation and officers in Fairfax's
army, seeJohn Vicars The Coleman-streetconclavevisited ([21 Mar.] i648), pp. 22-3, (B.L., E 433/
6).John Goodwin's gathered church met in the parish of St Stephen's Coleman St. Guildhall Lib.,
MS 4458/I (Vestry Mins., St Stephen's, Coleman St), p. i6o. Until the late I64os,John Goodwin's
congregation met in 'Alchurchlane' parish (ibid).
177 Brooke, speech of 8 Nov. i642; Thr-eespeeches spoken in Gvild-Hall (i642), p. 4 (Wing, B
49I O).
178 See the speeches by Evelyn and Fiennes on 30 April i646; Minutes of the sessions of the
Westminsterassembly of divines, ed. A. F. Mitchell and J. Struthers (Edinburgh, i874), p. 225.
179
C7, V, 348.
180 Harington, Diary, ed. Stieg, p. 54. C], v, i87.
181 For Fleetwood's friendship with Saye, see his letter to Saye, printed in [Saye], Vindiciae
veritatis, p. 6i. See also, B.L., Add. MS 37344 (Whitelocke's Annals), fo. 56. Hatfield, Cecil
Petitions 2359. Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS, XLI, fo. 128.
182 In Feb. i649, Sidney became deputy to the countess of Carlisle as keeper of Nonsuch House
and Park - an appointment he almost certainly owed to Northumberland who was then managing
the countess's affairs. Warwickshire R.O., Warwick Castle MS, CR i886/2836. C], v, 370.
Among the drafting committee for the four bills, in the Commons, were St John anld Salisbury's
influential steward, Samuel Browne. D. Underdown, Pride's puirge: politics in the puritan revolution
(Oxford, I97I), pp. 87-8.
183 John Rylands Lib., Manchester, Eng. MS 300/I2 (Pink Papers). B.L., Add. MS 63057
(Burnet's historical notes, 2 vols), I, I74-5.

not suffer any iniurie to be done me', Northumberland confidently informed

his steward, Hugh Potter, if 'that is in his power to prevent.'184This reputation
for reliability also won him Saye's confidence, and the two men regularly
worked together in the sub-committees of the Committee of Both King-
doms.185With Fiennes,Pierrepontdraftedthedeclarationjustifyingparliament's
decision to break off further negotiations with the king in January I648, a
work so much admired by Saye that he reprinted it as an appendix to his own
history of the civil wars.186And on 12 July I 647 - at the beginning of the week
in which the proposalswere first drafted - he became a feoffee for the countess
of Kent, whose husband was among the principal supporters of the propo-
sals.187With the existence of this like-minded group of M.P.s - Fiennes, Evelyn,
StJohn and Pierrepont - so closelyconnected, individually and collectively,with
the Saye-Northumberland 'interest', it is hardly surprising that they were
consulted in the preparation of the original draft.
Effective as this highly organised caucus was within parliament, the settle-
ment was only viable so long as it maintained the support of the army.
Successfulcultivation of this source of influence was the basis of the dominance
of parliamentary politics achieved by the Saye-Northumberland group, and
its allies in the Commons, during the autumn of I647. 'The Lord Say, Saint
Jon and Vaine the younger' were the 'Cabbinet Counsell', Sir Lewis Dyve
informed the king in September, 'who now steer the affaires of the wholl
kingdome.'188 Cromwell and Ireton acted as the chief apologists for the
projected settlement within the General Council of the Army, working
zealously to maintain cordial relations between the army and the Lords.
Potentially, the army was the single most powerful political force in the country
by the autumn of I647; yet, so long as it adhered to that basic tenet of the
'Good Old Cause' - that the settlement of the kingdom was to be achieved by
parliamentarymeans - the army was dependent upon the Saye-Northumber-
land group as the only effective faction in the parliament which supported a
settlement of church and kingdom acceptable to a majority in the General
Council. And as the debates of August had revealed, the Lords was the only
House in which the supporters of the projected settlement enjoyed un-
challenged procedural control. Cromwell stated the problem with charac-
teristic bluntness: 'Either they are a Parliament or no Parliament. If they be
no Parliament, they are nothing, and we are nothing likewise'.189
Thus, in the tactical preparations that preceded the introduction of the
proposals as legislation in the Lords, Cromwell attempted to abate Lilburne's
offensive fulminations against the house of lords. During a meeting with
Lilburne at the Tower on 5 September, Cromwell pressed upon him the need
184 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS, 0.1.2 (f): Northumberland to Potter, 24 June
I 645-
185 For Saye's high opinion of Pierrepont, see [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, p. 9i.
186 [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, p. 9i; [part ii], p. 7I.
187 BedfordshireR.O., Lucas MS (earl of Kent papers), L22/28.
188 Dyve to the king, 5 Sept. i647; Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 84.
189
Clarkepapers, ed. Firth, I, 369.

'to avoide the giving a so great distast to the House of Peeres at a time when
it so much imported the army to preserve a faire correspondence with
them'.190 To avoid offending Northumberland, Cromwell relinquished his
support for his fellow officer, Colonel Thomas Rainborowe, who was then
seeking appointment as vice-admiral of the parliamentary fleet."9' As viewed
by republicans such as Lilburne, Challoner and Marten, it was in the army's
power to impose whatever settlement it chose; yet this opportunity was being
squandered by the General Council's adherence to statute as the instrument
of reformation. For statute was the creation of parliament; and so long as the
army maintained parliament, there would remain the repugnant necessity for
a 'faire correspondence' with the peers. In a letter to Marten of 15 September,
Lilburne denounced 'Cromwell and his Lordly interest', asserting that Crom-
well 'is now so closely glude in interest and councell to the Lord Say, the Lord
Wharton' and their allies in the Commons, St John and Vane.192 Yet even
Lilburne was forced begrudgingly to admit that such a policy had its merits,
since 'it should or might be said ... the Lords are growne very gallant, and far
now in honesty outstrip the present House of Commons'.193 Lilburne was
outraged to find out that the General Council of the Army had quietly shelved
the question of securing his release from the Tower, where he had been
committed by the Lords, lest this mar relations with the peers. Mrs Lilburne
found her husband regarded as an embarrassment when she journeyed to
Putney to canvass support for his release. 'Petition to the Lords for... liberty,
as the only way to procure it', was the galling advice of Trooper William
Allen, one of the Agitators in Cromwell's regiment of horse.194
Underlying Cromwell's political co-operation with the peers were bonds of
personal friendship and puritan fellowship with Saye, the earl of Mulgrave,195
and Lords Howard196 and Wharton. While at London during these months
Cromwell stayed at Wharton's house in St Martin's Lane, and conferred
190 Dyve to king, letters of 5 and I3 Sept. I647; Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 84
(for quote); pp. 84, 88. This meeting was noted (but misdated) by Gardiner, who did not have
access to Dyve's detailed account (obtained at first hand from Lilburne, who was lodged near his
cell in the Tower). Gardiner, Civil war, III, 369. Cf. 'The Proposition of Lieut. Col. Lilburne', 2
Oct. I647; printed in Perfect Occurrences,no. 40 (I-8 Oct. I647), p. 276 (B.L., E 5I8/42).
191 Dyve, 'Letter-Book', ed. H. G. Tibbutt, p. 84.
192 Lilburne to Marten, I5 Sept. I647; Lilburne, Two Letters.. .to Col. Henry Martin (i647), pp.
4-5. Lilburne, however, acknowledged Wharton's past favour to him: Wharton had ensured that
Lilburne was given until the afternoon to prepare his 'Protestation' to the Lords in I646, when
Lilburne was summoned to appear at the Bar of the House. Lilburne, The iuglers discovered([Sept.]
I647), p. 9 (B.L., E 409/22).
193 John Lilburne, The iuglers discovered ([Sept.] I647), p. 9 (B.L., E 409/22).
194 Lilburne to Fairfax, 2I Aug. I647; printed in ibid. Clarke papers, ed. Fil-th, I, 438. For- a
reassessment of the extent of Leveller influence see Mark Kishlansky, 'What happened at Ware?',
Historical journal, xxv (I982), 827-39; and 'The army and the Levellers: the roads to Putney',
Historicaljournal, XXII (I979), 795-824.
195 For his friendship with Mulgrave (Fairfax's cousin), see Cromwell to Wharton, 2 Sept.
I648; Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches, ed. T. Carlyle, (3 vols., i847), I, 304. Mulgrave later
became a member of Cromwell's privy council.
196 Cromwell to Lord Howard of Escrick, 23 March I647: P.R.O., SP I9/I06, fo. 36.

regularly with him on the management of policy in the Commons.197 Saye

regarded Cromwell as his closest ally in their ardent pursuit of a comprehensive
settlement of the church that encompassed Presbyterian and Independent
interests - an alliance that came to fruition in Cromwell's support for the
peers' religious settlement. Defending Cromwell in I648 from the contemners
of 'toleration to tender consciences', Saye quoted at length from a letter from
Cromwell, arguing from personal experience the viability of religious compre-
hension; that uniting Presbyterians and Independents was 'the same spirit of
faith and prayer'.198 Elaborating Cromwell's argument, Saye maintained that
this spiritual unity rendered insignificant the differences on church govern-
ment between the godly. For the peace of the state, this axiom needed to be
embodied in legislation:
but most of all, because as he [Cromwell] that writes it, so I with my soul desire that
this unity of the Spirit in the band of peace and brotherly love might be more observed
and practised in all places, notwithstanding these names [of Presbyterian and In-
dependent], and the things for which they have been cast upon men.'99
In the legislative campaign to effect, as one element in the projected settlement,
this godly ideal, Saye and Wharton appear to have briefed Cromwell on the
timetable for presentation of the proposals in parliament, enabling him and
Ireton to time their absences from army headquarters at Putney so as to lend
their support in the Commons to the Lords' initiatives. Discovering that
Fairfax had nominated him to attend a routine court martial on 13 October,
the day planned for the introduction of Saye's bill on religion and its discussion
in the Commons, Cromwell wrote to Fairfax that morning, apologizing that
he would not be able to attend the court martial as 'I scarce miss the house
a day, where it is very necessarie for mee to bee'.200 That afternoon, Cromwell
acted as teller in a division on the question of comprehension, supporting the
content of the bill that had been introduced that morning in the Lords.20'
Ireton attended four days later, delivering an impassioned speech urging the
passage of peers' bills on delinquents and the religious settlement.202
Ireton's royalist brother-in-law, Sir Edward Forde, noted this Cromwell-
Ireton-Saye trio in operation when opponents of the settlement sought to
remove Ashbournham and Berkeley from their attendance on the king.
Ashbournham later claimed that he and Sir John Berkeley had been
invited over to England inJune by Cromwell and Ireton; yet it is clear that they
had a powerful patron in the Lords, for it was a peer who, on i6 June,
obtained an unrestricted pass - which was never recorded in the journal - for
B.L., Add. MS 4186, fo. I4; G.F.T.Jones, Saw-pit Wharton (Sydney, I967), p. II3. Merc.
197
Prag., no. 6(I9-26 Oct. I647), pp. 43-4 (B.L., E 4I I/23). Merc. Melancholicus, no. iO (30 Oct.-
6 Nov. I647), p. 59 (B.L., E 4I2/32). For Cromwell's relations with Wharton see also John
Worth-Rush [pseud.], A coppie of a letter to be sent to Lieutenant General Cromwell (r7 Oct.] I647), p.
7-
198 [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, pp. I45-6. 199 [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, p. I48.
200 Cromwell to Fairfax, I3 October I647 (dated at Putney): B.L., Sloane MS I5I9, fo. 8o.
201 202
C?, V, 332. John Boys, 'Diary', ed. D. E. Underdown, p. I49 (20 Oct. I647).

'Io[hn]. Berkeley' and his servants to pass the guards going to and from
London, 'as often as they please'.203 At the time when the peers were stage-
managing the presentation of the Newcastle Propositions, Ashbournham
appears to have been the intermediary between Saye's political group and the
king; indeed, SirJohn Maynard regarded Ashbournham as working for Saye's
interests as early as July.204 It was natural, therefore, that Saye and his allies
should co-ordinate efforts to prevent Ashbournham's removal from attendance
at court. Cromwell and Ireton obstructed the measure in the Commons; in the
Lords, Forde noted, 'it was opposed by the Lord Say', adding suspiciously,
'timeo Danaos et dona ferentes '205 Suspicious he might be, but there was no
gainsaying the peers' effectiveness in proposing a settlement that commanded
even the king's support. In mid-October one of the king's attendants reported
that Charles would accept the projected settlement if passed by parliament in
the form in which Saye and Wharton had introduced it in the Lords, but was
not prepared to agree to amendments by the Commons.206
The meticulous skill with which Saye and Wharton cultivated relations
between their parliamentary faction and the General Council of the Army is
most apparent in the three weeks following the introduction, in mid-October,
of the proposals into the Lords.207 After seeing their programme safely through
the upper House, the two peers absented themselves from i9 October, return-
ing on the 28th, in time for the first day's debate on the Commons' amend-
ments to the legislation.208 Wharton, in the interim, had visited Cromwell at
Putney,209 presumably to discuss Ashbournham's reports of the king's reaction
to the proposals, and to confer on the intelligence reports that a new Scottish
invasion, in support of the king, was imminent; a contingency that threatened
to destroy the basis of the proposed settlement.210 The settlement was also
under threat from a second direction: the advocates of the Leveller inspired
Agreementof the People,211 debate on which occupied the General Council of the
Army in the most celebrated of the Putney debates, between 28-3 I October.212
At the end of the Lords' debates on the Commons' amendments, on Friday
203 H.L.R.O., Order Book B/ i 6 (i 6 June I 647) .

204 Beinecke Lib., MS Osborn Fb I55 (Browne Cpl. Bk), fo. 239: 'Jack Ashburnham is rich;
and yet much at Oxford, and would saue stakes: besides, he knows not the K.'s best freinds, and
he is imployed by the K's and Kiingdomes greatest enemies [named as Saye, St John, Pierrepont,
Vane, Fiennes and Evelyn].'
205 Sir Edward Forde to Lord Hopton, 28 Sept. i647; Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo.
76v.
206 Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. i62. (The attendant is not identified, but is probably
Nicholas Oudart.) 207 U, IX, 483-4.
208 LU, IX, 486, 499.
209 Merc. Prag., no. 6 (I9-26 Oct. i647), p. 43 (B.L., E 4I I/23). Merc. Melancholiculs,no. IO (30
Oct.-6 Nov. i647), p. 59 (B.L., E 4I2/32).
210 The Perfect Weekly Account, no. 4I (I3-20 Oct. I647), sig. Q 3 [I], (B.L., E 4I I/I4). Col.
Edmund Whalley to Speaker Lenthall, I5 Nov. i647, printed in Francis Peck, ed., Desiderata cuiriosa
(I 732), IX, 38-40. (Peck's suggestion that the letter was to SirJohn Lenthall is obviously erroneous;
see ibid. p. 40.) 211 An agreementof the people (r3 Nov.] i647), B.L., E 4I2/2I.
212 For these debates see Clarke papers, ed. Firth, I, 226-406. G. E. Aylmer, The Levellers in the
English revolution 975), pp. 97-I30.

29 October, Saye left Westminster for the short journey by water up the
Thames to Putney.213 Two objectives motivated this journey: to observe at
first hand the results of the debates on the Leveller Agreement(and presumably
to use his influence privately against it); and to safeguard the peers' settlement
from the threatened disruption of a Scottish alliance with the king, by securing
the king's person under close guard. On Sunday 31 October, two days after
Ireton had argued trenchantly against the Leveller Agreement,Saye met with
senior officers in a private conference at Cromwell's lodgings at Putney, a
house belonging to Cromwell's friend and fellow M.P., John Goodwyn.2"'
Goodwyn was an appropriate host for this cabal with Saye; he had obliged
Saye by sponsoring petitions in the Commons at his request, and been
rewarded by Saye's patronage in the Court of Wards.2"5 The discussions at
Goodwyn's house that Sunday evening were intended to lay the ground for the
important meeting of the General Council of the Army scheduled for the
following Monday morning. Conferring long with his army allies, it was
reported that Saye 'jugled till late at night, and then with a Foote-boy (and
no other Attendance) sneakt downe to the water side, and ferryed to some
other place for the like righteous purpose'.2"6 By the time Saye reappeared in
the Lords the following morning, i November,217 he had achieved the two
objects of his journey. He was confident that a majority in the General Council
was set firmly against the Leveller Agreement;and that morning, as he took his
place in the Lords' chamber, the guards on the king were doubled to prevent
further communication with the Scots and to forestall the possibility of escape.
Saye had played what one observer called his 'Master Trumpe' ;218 if the king
refused to grant his assent voluntarily, the propositions could be imposed upon
him.
Against the prevailing background of Anglo-Scottish diplomacy, this option
was neither as rash nor as radical as it might first appear. As Saye analysed
the king's behaviour in the negotiations, the only obstacle preventing the king
from accepting the projected settlement was the hopes he entertained of a
military intervention by the Scots. 'Is it imaginable', Saye asked, 'that the
213 Merc. Elencticus,no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. I647),pp. IO-I I (B.L., E 4I4/4). Saye missed the
Saturday morning sitting of the Lords on 30 October, indicating that he had probably left London
the previous evening. L3, IX, 504, 506.
214 Merc. Elencticus, no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. I647), pp. IO-I I. For the identification of the member's
house at Putney as Goodwyn's, see A continuation of certain speciall and remarkablepassages (28
Aug.-3 Sept. I647), sig. L 2 (B.L., E 405/I8). For an earlier political meeting at Putney, attended
by Goodwyn and Cromwell, see B.L., Add. MS 37344 (Whitelocke's Annals), fo. 2oV.
215 Saye to Lenthall, io Feb. I644; Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 62, fo. 555. P.R.O., WARDS 9/
556 (Entry Bk of Orders), P. 776. For Goodwyn's work as chairman of the Commons' Committee
for Petitions, see P.R.O., SP 28/265/I (Committee for Petitions papers), fos. 3I, 44, 50, 52, 64,
77, 8I, 99, I03.
216 Merc. Elencticus,no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. I647), p. II.
217
L_, Ix, 5o6. Debate continued in the General Council of the Army on the Agreementuntil
8 November.
218 Merc. Elencticus, no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. I647), pp. io-I i. Ashbournham claimed that under the
new arrangements the guards were posted 'so neare His Majesties Chamber that they disturbed
His repose'. Ashbournham, Narrative, II, IOI.

King, in the condition he was, would have refused to come to his Parliament
and set upon his Throne... had he not been encouraged thereunto by the
Scotch Commissioners, who went of purpose in the nick of time unto him? '219
If Charles could be isolated from contact with the Scots while this military
threat was neutralized by diplomatic means, then he believed that the king
would be forced to accept the parliament's terms. There was, after all, no
certitude that a Scottish invasion would take place; and in November 1647,
it seemed as if Argyll's peace-party would continue to be the dominant force
in Scottish politics, despite Hamilton's bellicose sabre-rattling.220 Acting on
this diplomatic assessment, Saye was reported to have his 'Emmissaries and
Agents', negotiating to keep Scotland neutral while the peace talks were
concluded in England ;221 and it was as part of this overall diplomatic strategy
that Saye and Cromwell prevailed with the Revenue Committeeman, William
Ashhurst, to accept the sensitive mission as parliamentary commissioner to
Edinburgh, early in i648.222 Securing the king's person was intended as a
temporary period of political quarantine, during which diplomacy could
prevent the Scottish intervention upon which the king's military and political
expectations depended.
That the king needs must come to terms with parliament eventually was
forcibly emphasised in the preamble that was now added - probably by
Pierrepont and Fiennes - to the body of the proposals. 'The king of England
for the time being', the preamble asserted, 'is bound in Justice, and by the
duty of his office to give his assent to all such laws as by the Lords and
Commons shall be adjudged to be for the good of the Kingdom.'223 Without
alteration of its substance, the preamble was approved by the Lords; the
promptitude of their consent to this denial of the king's 'negative voice'
suggests that Nathaniel Fiennes, one of the drafting committee for the
preamble, had run another of his errands to the upper House, to confer
beforehand on the wording of the statement.224 Although this principle was
nowhere stated in the Heads of theProposalsadopted by the army, it had formed
part of the first draft prepared by Saye and Wharton's faction at Westminster
in July.225 Its inclusion at this point was a stern admonition to the king against
further dealings with the Scots, and opened up the possibility that in the event
of Charles's refusal of the terms, parliament would proceed to a settlement as
if his assent had already been given.
219
[Saye], Vindiciaeveritatis,p. 74.
220 For the Scottish background see Gardiner, Civil war, IV, 87-8. David Stevenson, Revolution
and counter-revolutionin Scotland I644-I65I (0977), pp. 90-7.
221 Merc. Elencticus, no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. i647), p. II (B.L., E 4I4/4).
222
Westminsterprojects, or the mysterieof Darby House discovered(i648), pp. I, 7. (B.L., E 433/I5).
Bodl. Lib., MS Tanner 58, fo. 783: Ashhurst to Lenthall, [i647]. For Ashhurst, see also John
Rylands Lib., Manchester, Eng. MS 296/206 (Pink Papers); P.R.O., SP 28/269/2 (Cttee of
Revenue warr.), fo. I76v. Broughton Castle, Oxon, Saye MS II/87. 223 LU, Ix, 5i8.
224 For Nathaniel Fiennes's errands to the Court of Requests see Merc. Prag., no. 6 (Ig-26 Oct.
I647), p. 44 (B.L., E 4II/23).
225 The proposal in the original draft to limit the king's negative voice is summarized by
Wildman in Putney proiects (i 647), p. I 4.

6oo J. S. A. ADAMSON
The king at least was in no doubt as to what this preamble meant. News of
its passage in the Lords reached him no later than 9 November. In a stormy
interview with the Prince Elector, who visited the king on the i oth, he confided
that he feared deposition or an attempt on his life.226 Despite the increased
vigilance, the following day the king evaded the guards and escaped from
Hampton Court, intent upon the alliance with the Scots that Saye had
attempted at all costs to avert.227 Predictably, in the army, opinion veered
decisively against further dealings with the king.228
The change in the temper of the army drastically narrowed Saye's range of
political options. To keep alive the agenda of the projected settlement Saye's
group needed to extract an unequivocal gesture of good faith from the king.
Only by such a gesture could they counteract the army's sense of outrage at
Charles's breach of his parole in escaping from Hampton Court. The fact that
they needed that gesture promptly meant that, in their next offer of pro-
positions, the proposals were to be reduced to the barest minimum: to four
bills covering the militia, future admissions to the house of lords, the adjourn-
ment of the present parliament and the voiding of the king's wartime
declarations. Once again it was the Lords who took the initiative, sending
down bills which were subsequently approved by the house of commons.229
'These substantial and absolutely necessary things', as Saye termed them,
were the crucial clauses which 'might secure us for the future in our Liber-
ties '230 Their contents, however, mattered little; for what Saye had failed to take
into account was the king's deluded sense of optimism. By the end of December,
after giving them no more than scant consideration, the king had rejected the
four bills - and with them, Saye's policy of conciliation. Pursuing his self-
destructive passion for duplicity, Charles again turned his back on parliament
and embarked upon his ultimate folly, the military alliance with the Scots.
Redundant, if not discredited, the projected settlement had now to be shelved
indefinitely.
V
Although never implemented, the projected settlement of I647 remains signi-
ficant as a summary of the political and ecclesiastical aims of its promoters,
and as attesting to their remarkable political dominance during the latter half
of I647. That the correspondence has gone unnoticed, between the first draft
of the proposals and the agenda introduced by Saye and Wharton in the
226 Elector Palatine to Elizabeth of Bohemia, ii Nov. i647: P.R.O., TS 23/I (Treasury
Solicitor, miscell., Elector Palatine's correspondence).
227 Late in October, Charles had conferred privately with the earls of Lanark and Lauderdale,
resolving to escape from the army and to journey incognito to Berwick, while the Scot's Com-
missioners used the threat of invasion to exact from parliament more lenient terms for a restoration.
Gilbert Burnet, The Memoires of the lives and action of James and William dutkesof Hanmilton( i677), p.
324. Burnet claimed to have received his information at first hand from Lauderdale.
228 Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. I75 (letter of intell., 8 Nov. i647).
229
H.L.R.O., MP 6/I2/47, fo. 72r-v. MP i6/I2/47, fos. I25-6. MP 24/I2/47, fo. 46. MP 28/
I2/47, fo. 7iv. Gardiner, Constitutional documents,pp. 335-4I.
230 [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, pp. 74-5.

ENGLISH NOBILITY 6oi
Lords, is largely the fault of the human frailty of the parliamentary clerks.
Though they noted a well intentioned 'Here enter it' beside the titles of the
proposals, these bills were made redundant before this back-log of copying was
made up; there were more pressing claims upon their time and ink than the
entering of defunct constitutional schemes.231 Only when the manuscript
drafts are examined does the correlation between the July proposals and the
Lords' legislation for settlement become apparent. With characteristic
thoroughness, Gardiner noted that the Lords had initiated a remarkable bill
for religious reform, basing his claim on a correct but incomplete summary in
the Moderate Intelligencer;232 yet most of the evidence relating to the original
drafts of the proposals was inaccessible.233
To recapitulate; the first draft of the proposals appears to have been the
work of Saye and Wharton in consultation with a group from the Commons
including Fiennes, StJohn, Pierrepont and Evelyn. Having drawn it up in the
week before I 7 July, the parliamentary group at Westminster conferred with
Wharton, Ireton and Cromwell at Reading, employing Saye's friend Dr
William Stane as their emissary. The completed 'heads' for parliamentary
legislation were sponsored by Ireton before the General Council of the Army
on I 7 July, at the end of Wharton's mission to Fairfax's headquarters. Wharton
reported to his parliamentary allies the Council's reactions to the proposals
when he returned to London on the igth. Secure in their management of
parliament between October and the first week of November, Saye and
Wharton introduced the proposals as legislation - working with Fiennes and
their party in the Commons - including as well the proposals on episcopacy,
bishops' lands and the king's power of veto, the omission of which was the only
significant difference between the first recension of July and the Heads of the
Proposals adopted by the Army Council. Ireton was an able advocate and
apologist for this scheme. But in the role traditionally ascribed to him, as
originator and author of the scheme that became the Heads of the Proposals, he
seems to have been miscast.
For so substantial a political undertaking, it was natural that a peer should
act as broker and manager of the diverse constituents of the political nation
that required co-ordination if the proposals were to make the transition from
paper to practice. Bedford had performed this task of brokerage in i64I; and
in these negotiations it was Saye who picked up the threads after Bedford's
death.234 In i647, Saye was once again the guiding force behind the projected
settlement. With his range of connexions in the Commons, his factional power
base in the Lords, and his influential friends in the army, 'he hath a footing
in every J_uncto',declared Nedham, 'and preserves an interest in every Fac-
tion'235 Such an undertaking would, of course, have been impossible but for the
23
Uj, rx, 340, 482.
23
ModerateIntelligencer,
no. I34 (7-I4 Oct. I647), pp. I3I9-20 (B.L., E 4I0/25).
233 Gardiner, Civil war, III, 375-6.
234 C. S. R. Russell, 'Parliament and the king's finances', in idem, ed., The origins of the English
civil war (I973), p. II3-

235 Merc. Prag., no. i9 (i8-25 Jan. i648), sig. T 2[V] (B.L., E 423/2I).

existence of a consensus as to the form such a settlement should take among

his faction in the Lords, his allies in the Commons and his friends in the army.
Although Wharton was a skilled negotiator and an active participant in all
stages of the deliberations, it was to Saye that he turned for advice.236 And it
was Saye's abilities as draftsman and political manager that brought these
reforms so close to fulfilment. The motives and tactics of their promoters were,
of course, denounced by Holles's old supporters; 'This is hee that with a twine
thread leads about our wise Nobility', Nedham remarked ;237 and Wharton's
influence was similarly put down to his ability to dupe his colleagues.238 The
end of Pembroke's compliance in the scheme was attributed to Saye's domi-
nating influence over the earl: the 'pernicious principles' infused by the White
Jew of the Vpper House'.239 But even the hostile newsbook, MercuriusElencticus,
took pause to admire his political virtuosity.
Thus His Honours Pan-Peece is in continuall Motion, and where his owne Person
cannot so conveniently go, there his Emissaries and Agents negotiate for him. He has
'em now in Scotland, both brawling and sweating for the cause ... Yet all must be done
by way of Application, and he's as smooth as a butter-box. Oh how the Presbyterians
sneare in their sleeves to see with what dexterity this Spider weaves his nets to catch
the silly Flies of the Army.240
From the outbreak of the second civil war in the spring of I648 - the fruition
of Charles's alliance with the Scots - there existed an ever increasing diver-
gence between the terms acceptable to parliament, and those acceptable to the
army, a divergence that was remedied only by a fundamental change in the
structure of parliament; by a purge of the Commons and the abolition of the
Lords. Peace, Saye noted, had narrowly slipped from their grasp, and he
contemplated the future with apprehension. 'For had the king at that time
passed those Four Bills, a Peace had been setled, safe and just to the Subjects,
as Honourable to himself, and all troubles and confusions ended, which, when
they will now end, the Lord onely knoweth. '241
236 Characteristically, when Cromwell summoned Wharton to attend his Upper House,
Wharton turned to Saye for counsel as to whether he should accept the invitation. Bodl. Lib., MS
Carte 8o, fo. 749.
237 Merc. Prag., no. I9 (i8-25 Jan. I648), sig. T 2[V] (B.L., E 423/2I).
238 William Lilly, Merliniangliciephemeris
1648 (i 647),' To the Reader', 23 Oct. I 647, sig. A 2V:
'It's a very lye if Wharton swear it'. [John Musgrave], A fourthwordto thewise ([8 June] I647),
pp. 2-5.
239 A letterto the earleof Pembrooke concerning the times (I647), p. I 2. T3hisanti-semiticremark
referred to Saye's reputation as a defender of the practice of usury: see his MS tracts, 'A defence
of Usury, by the Ld Say, I64I ', Cambridge University Library, Add. MS 44/20 (Patrick papers);
and Saye, 'A Tract to Prove that Usuary is Lawful', Queen's College, Oxford, MS Reg. I95, fos.
I 2-20. 240 Merc. Elencticus, no. 2 (5-I2 Nov. I647), p. II (B.L., E 4I4/4).
241 [Saye], Vindiciaeveritatis,p. 76.


(ADAMSON) The English Noblity and The Projected Sttlement of 1647

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The English Nobility and the Projected Settlement of 1647

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THE ENGLISH NOBILITY AND THE

On 26 July I647 Westminster, in the grip of plague and political crisis,

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management of the Committee of Revenue.13 Policy as well as patronage was

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3 Lilburne to Cromwell, 22 June i647: printed in Ionahscryoutof thewhalesbelly(i647), p. 8

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MS I5I9 (misc. lett.), fo. I04v.

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the puritan divine, Stephen Marshall, and the earl of Northumberland's

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239r-v. 66 Pearl, 'London's Counter-Revolution', p. 52.

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82 John Lawmind [Wildman], Putneyproiects.Or the old serpent(I647), p. 15 (B.L., E 421/

[Wildman], Putneyproiects,sig. F 2[v]. For WandesfordseeJ. W. Clay, 'The gentry of Yorks.

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86 L, IX, 374-5; CJ, V, 268-9. 87 L, IX, 375; CJ, V,269.

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letter to Manchester accompanying the Remonstrance, 'notwithstanding the

107 Memoirsof EdmundLudlow,ed. Firth, I, I63. 108 L], IX, 4o8.

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persevering with the Newcastle Propositions as a basis for peace."' Predictably,

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introduced in the house of lords. Formulated in committee by the Saye-

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The new ecclesiastical regimen established a church structure consisting of

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Fiennes assumed the chairmanship of the committee investigating the July

(I732), pp. I25 ff.; quote at p. I46.

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not suffer any iniurie to be done me', Northumberland confidently informed

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regularly with him on the management of policy in the Commons.197 Saye

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203 H.L.R.O., Order Book B/ i 6 (i 6 June I 647) .

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civil war (I973), p. II3-

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existence of a consensus as to the form such a settlement should take among

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