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Repeated Testimonies of Duty and Affection: Constructing Loyalty in Cornwall and South-West Wales, 1681–1685

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Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400-1688

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Abstract

Historians have frequently described Cornwall and Wales as intrinsically loyalist: their steadfast royalism during the Civil Wars seamlessly transformed into ardent Toryism in the 1680s. For some, this was an essential aspect of their ‘national character’. This chapter, however, argues that this interpretation has misleadingly downplayed the existence of oppositionist elements within Cornish and Welsh society. Through a detailed analysis of the loyal addressing campaigns of 1681–83 and charter campaign of 1683–85 in Cornwall and south-west Wales, it argues that a ‘loyalist identity’ was indeed constructed by Tories within these regions, which was bound to their political and religious beliefs, and emphasised their past Royalist service. Yet these overlapping campaigns also had a partisan and pragmatic purpose: whilst creating an image of unanimous loyalty, they highlighted those Whigs who did not participate. Ultimately, the region’s Tories benefitted from royal changes in municipal office-holding at the expense of Whigs.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    B. Deacon, Cornwall: A Concise History (Cardiff, 2007), pp. 94–5; M. Stoyle, West Britons: Cornish Identities and the Early Modern British State (Exeter, 2002), p. 157.

  2. 2.

    K. Feiling, A History of the Tory Party, 1640–1714 (Oxford, 1950), pp. 16–18.

  3. 3.

    P. Lord, Words with Pictures: Welsh Images and Images of Wales in the Popular Press, 1640–1860 (Aberystwyth, 1995), p. 45.

  4. 4.

    W. A. Speck, Tory & Whig: The Struggle in the Constituencies, 1701–1715 (London, 1970), p. 67; G. Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (London, 1967), p. 171.

  5. 5.

    See G. H. Jenkins, The Foundations of Modern Wales: Wales, 1642–1780 (Oxford, 1987), pp. 4–5.

  6. 6.

    Stoyle, West Britons, chapters 3–4; M. Stoyle, ‘English ‘Nationalism’, Celtic Particularism, and the English Civil War’, The Historical Journal 43 (2000), 1113–28; M. Stoyle, Soldiers and Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War (New Haven and London, 2005), pp. 11–32, 153–72; L. Bowen, The Politics of the Principality: Wales, c. 1603–1642 (Cardiff, 2007), chapter 6; L. Bowen, ‘Representations of Wales and the Welsh during the Civil Wars and Interregnum’, Historical Research 77 (2004), 358–76.

  7. 7.

    Bowen, Politics of the Principality, p. 259.

  8. 8.

    Stoyle, West Britons, chapter 8.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 166.

  10. 10.

    See C. Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800 (Cambridge, 1999); J. Kerrigan, Archipelagic English: Literature, History, and Politics, 1603–1707 (Oxford, 2008), p. 36.

  11. 11.

    J. C. D. Clark, English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime (2nd edn., Cambridge, 2000). For criticism of Clark’s ancien régime as reductive, see J. E. Bradley, Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism: Non-conformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 417–18.

  12. 12.

    A. Browning and D. Milne, ‘An Exclusion Bill Division List’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Res. 23 (1950), 205–25.

  13. 13.

    See G. Tapsell, The Personal Rule of Charles II (Woodbridge, 2007).

  14. 14.

    Ibid., p. 6.

  15. 15.

    T. Harris, Restoration: Charles II and his Kingdoms, 1660–1685 (London, 2005), pp. 266–76; M. Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation in Later Stuart Britain: Partisanship and Political Culture (Oxford, 2005), chapter 3; M. Knights, Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–81 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 335–44; P. Harth, Pen for a Party: Dryden’s Tory Propaganda in its Contexts (Princeton, 1993), p. 82; T. Vallance, ‘“From the Hearts of the People”: Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere in the Exclusion Crisis’, in Religion, Culture and National Community in the 1670s, ed. T. Claydon and T. N. Corns (Cardiff, 2011), pp. 127–47.

  16. 16.

    Tapsell, Personal Rule, pp. 35–8; Harris, Restoration, pp. 252–9.

  17. 17.

    ‘Subscriptional texts’ is Mark Knights’ phrase: Representation and Misrepresentation, p. 117. For a description of loyal addresses, see T. Vallance, ‘Petitioning, Addressing and the Historical Imagination: The Case of Great Yarmouth, England, 1658–1784’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation 38 (2018), pp. 365–9.

  18. 18.

    Vox Angliæ; Or, the Voice of the Kingdom (London, 1682).

  19. 19.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 1, pp. 34, 41.

  20. 20.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 2, p. 1.

  21. 21.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 1, p. 53.

  22. 22.

    For the best account of Charles I’s letter, see Stoyle, West Britons, pp. 159–62.

  23. 23.

    English Historical Documents VIII: 1660–1714, ed. A. Browning (London, 1953), p. 188.

  24. 24.

    Knights, Politics and Opinion, pp. 11, 362.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., pp. 321–2.

  26. 26.

    Harris, Restoration, pp. 261–2, 267–76; Knights, Politics and Opinion, pp. 339–44; Harth, Pen for a Party, p. 82. See also, Vallance, ‘Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere’, p. 138.

  27. 27.

    Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation, pp. 110–13, 149; Harris, Restoration, pp. 269–76.

  28. 28.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 1, pp. 16, 23–4, 29–30, 34–5, 53; pt. 2, p. 8; quotation at pt. 1, p. 16.

  29. 29.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 1, pp. 29, 30; pt. 2, p. 8.

  30. 30.

    Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation, p. 110.

  31. 31.

    Vox Angliæ, pt. 1, p. 24; London Gazette, no. 1627 (20–23 June 1681); London Gazette, no. 1660 (13–17 Oct. 1681).

  32. 32.

    Harth, Pen for a Party, p. 81; Vallance, ‘Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere’, p. 129.

  33. 33.

    London Gazette, no. 1649 (5–8 Sept. 1681); London Gazette, no. 1660 (13–17 Oct. 1681).

  34. 34.

    BL, Add. MS 70288 (Grant of the earldom of Bath, 20 Apr. 1661).

  35. 35.

    Harris, Restoration, p. 262; Harth, Pen for a Party, p. 82; Vallance, ‘Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere’, p. 138.

  36. 36.

    These were Callington, Camelford, Fowey, Lostwithiel, Newport, St Germans, St Ives, and Saltash.

  37. 37.

    G. L. Turner, Original Records of Nonconformity under Persecution and Indulgence, 3 vols. (London, 1911), i, p. 180.

  38. 38.

    For Plymouth as a dissenting stronghold, see CSPD, 1668–69, pp. 408, 655; CSPD, 1682, p. 10; CSPD, 1684–85, p. 189; Bodleian Library, MS Add. c. 305, f. 158 (Seth Ward to Gilbert Sheldon, 16 Sept. 1665); MS Tanner 36, ff. 62, 72, 91, 214 (Thomas Lamplugh to William Sancroft, 1681–82).

  39. 39.

    London Gazette, no. 1455 (27–30 Oct. 1679).

  40. 40.

    BL, Add. MS 28875, f. 224 (Sir Jonathan Trelawny to John Ellis, 28 Aug. 1682); Add. MS 15892, ff. 161–162 (Sir Jonathan Trelawny to earl of Rochester, 18 Nov. 1683).

  41. 41.

    J. H. Matthews, A History of the Parishes of Saint Ives, Lelant, Towednack and Zennor (London, 1892), p. 252.

  42. 42.

    TNA, SP 29/434, f. 98 (Thomas Trenwith to John Cooke, 7 Nov. 1683).

  43. 43.

    History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. B. D. Henning, 3 vols. (London, 1983), iii, pp. 624–6; London Gazette, no. 1864 (27 Sept.–1 Oct. 1683).

  44. 44.

    T. Godwyn, Phanatical Tenderness; Or, the Charity of the Non-conformists (London, 1684), pp. 16, 22, 24–5.

  45. 45.

    R. Mathias, ‘The First Civil War’, in Early Modern Pembrokeshire, 1536–1815, ed. B. E. Howells (Aberystwyth, 1987), pp. 160–8. The heads of these families were all JPs, deputy lieutenants, and featured on the corporations of Pembroke and Haverfordwest.

  46. 46.

    London Gazette, no. 1728 (8–12 June 1682).

  47. 47.

    Harris, Restoration, p. 269; Vallance, ‘Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere’, p. 134. For the related genre of petitions as local productions, see J. Maltby, Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 86, 96; J. Walter, ‘Confessional Politics in Pre-Civil War Essex: Prayer Books, Profanations, and Petitions’, The Historical Journal 44 (2001), 677–701.

  48. 48.

    On the role of loyal addresses in constructing identities, see Knights, Representation and Misrepresentation, pp. 111–12.

  49. 49.

    London Gazette, no. 1660 (13–17 Oct. 1681).

  50. 50.

    London Gazette, no. 1872 (25–29 Oct. 1683).

  51. 51.

    P. Halliday, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England’s Towns, 1650–1730 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 191–212.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., p. 192.

  53. 53.

    J. Miller, ‘The Crown and the Borough Charters in the Reign of Charles II’, EHR 100 (1985), p. 78.

  54. 54.

    TNA, SP 44/335, f. 374 (Warrant for passing the charters of Cornwall and Devon without fees, 10 Dec. 1684).

  55. 55.

    London Gazette, no. 1990 (11–15 Dec. 1684).

  56. 56.

    TNA, SP 44/335, f. 374.

  57. 57.

    J. Allen, History of the Borough of Liskeard and its Vicinity (London, 1856), pp. 79, 329; J. Wallis, The Bodmin Register; Or, Collections Relative to the Past and Present State of the Parish of Bodmin (Bodmin, 1827), p. 167.

  58. 58.

    Sir John Arundell at Mitchell; Sir Joseph Tredenham at St Mawes; Samuel Rolle at Callington; Daniel Elliot at St Germans. See TNA, SP 44/335, f. 374; Cornwall Record Office (afterwards CRO), BPENR/5 (Surrender of Penryn’s charter, 5 Nov. 1684).

  59. 59.

    For example, corporations in Lincolnshire and Worcestershire chose to surrender their charters promptly. See C. Holmes, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980), p. 247; T. Galitz, ‘The Challenge of Stability: Religion, Politics, and Social Order in Worcestershire, 1660–1715’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Brown University, 1997), p. 158.

  60. 60.

    R. Pickavance, ‘The English Boroughs and the King’s Government: A study of the Tory Reaction, 1681–85’ (unpublished D. Phil thesis, University of Oxford, 1976), pp. 216–17; Miller, ‘The Crown and the Borough Charters’, pp. 79–82; Halliday, Body Politic, p. 195.

  61. 61.

    TNA, SP 29/434, f. 98.

  62. 62.

    Pickavance, ‘English Boroughs’, pp. 179–80.

  63. 63.

    CRO, AR/25/96 (J. Newman to Sir John Arundell, 20 Nov. 1684); House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Henning, i, p. 173; iii, p. 104.

  64. 64.

    Halliday, Body Politic, pp. 220, 234; J. Miller, Cities Divided: Politics and Religion in English Provincial Towns, 1660–1722 (Oxford, 2007), p. 183.

  65. 65.

    CRO, R/5508 (Answer of Fowey to the king’s quo warranto, 17 Aug. 1684).

  66. 66.

    CRO, AR/25/96; CRO, AR/10/36 (Earl of Bath to Sir John Arundell, 3 Dec. 1684).

  67. 67.

    CRO, BK/353, f. 27 (Liskeard Constitution Book, 26 Aug. 1684).

  68. 68.

    CRO, BK/353, f. 27; CSPD, 1684–85, p. 199.

  69. 69.

    See, for example, CRO, AR/25/96; J. Maclean, The Parochial and Family History of the Deanery of Trigg Minor in the County of Cornwall, 3 vols. (London, 1873–79), i, p. 216. Bodmin’s mayor accounts recorded money paid to ‘Mr John Hoblyns man for coming from Stow with orders from my Lord of Bath’.

  70. 70.

    Pickavance, ‘English Boroughs’, pp. 311–24.

  71. 71.

    House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Henning, i, p. 161.

  72. 72.

    CRO, AR/10/36.

  73. 73.

    CSPD, 1685, p. 66.

  74. 74.

    CSPD, 1685, pp. 28, 71, 73–4, 80, 86–8, 109, 256–7.

  75. 75.

    Pickavance, ‘English Boroughs’, p. 324, note 3.

  76. 76.

    Wallis, Bodmin Register, pp. 327–8.

  77. 77.

    J. Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. De Beer, 6 vols. (Oxford, 1955), iv, pp. 442–5.

  78. 78.

    TNA, SP 31/1, f. 42 (Sir Jonathan Trelawny to earl of Sunderland, 22 Feb. 1685). Sir Joseph Tredenham and Sir Richard Edgcumbe also promised to use their interest to support court candidates: TNA, SP 31/1, ff. 40–41.

  79. 79.

    Pickavance, ‘English Boroughs’, pp. 276–7.

  80. 80.

    Beaufort did not visit Cardiganshire due to a lack of ‘fitt accomodations or place of Reception’: National Library of Wales, MS Nanteos L23 (Thomas Powell to Richard Powell, [1683–84]); BL, Add. MS 38175, f. 106 (Itinerary of duke of Beaufort’s progress, 1684).

  81. 81.

    M. McClain, ‘The Duke of Beaufort’s Tory Progress through Wales’, Welsh History Review 18 (1997), p. 593.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., pp. 612–19.

  83. 83.

    T. Dineley, An Account of the Progress of his Grace Henry the First Duke of Beaufort through Wales, 1684, ed. C. Baker (London, 1864), pp. 136–42, 160–1.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., pp. 156–60.

  85. 85.

    McClain, ‘Duke of Beaufort’s Tory Progress’, p. 617.

  86. 86.

    Pembrokeshire Archives, HBORO/408 (Common Council of Haverfordwest to [William Wogan], 17 Mar. 1682); HAM/SE/1/1, ff. 34v, 35, 36v, 39 (Haverfordwest minute book, Mar.–Sept. 1682).

  87. 87.

    McClain, ‘Duke of Beaufort’s Tory Progress’, p. 614; House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Henning, i, p. 515.

  88. 88.

    CSPD, 1686–87, pp. 43–4; W. Spurrell, Carmarthen and the Neighbourhood: Notes Topographical and Historical (2nd edn., Carmarthen, 1879), pp. 119, 179; House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Henning, i, p. 510.

  89. 89.

    London Gazette, no. 2035 (18–21 May 1685).

  90. 90.

    BL, Add. MS 38175, f. 118b (Charles Cornwallis to Sir Francis Cornwallis, 10 Mar. 1685); London Gazette, no. 2017 (16–19 Mar. 1684).

  91. 91.

    CRO, AR/25/103 (Sir John St Aubyn to Sir John Arundell, 17 Feb. 1685).

  92. 92.

    Vallance, ‘Loyalty, Addresses and the Public Sphere’, pp. 128–9, 142–3.

  93. 93.

    J. Miller, After the Civil Wars: English Politics and Government in the Reign of Charles II (Harlow, 2000), p. 273; Knights, Politics and Opinion, pp. 112, 115.

  94. 94.

    Knights, Politics and Opinion, pp. 109, 356.

  95. 95.

    P. Walker, James II and the Three Questions: Religious Toleration and the Landed Classes, 1687–1688 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 110–11, 117, 135, 196. On Cornwall and south-west Wales during the reign of James II, see J. Harris, ‘Politics and Religion in Later Stuart Cornwall and South-West Wales: A Comparative Study’ (unpublished D. Phil thesis, University of Oxford, 2018), pp. 138–43.

  96. 96.

    Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, D135/B1/4/12 (Earl of Bath to Lord George Jeffreys, 5 Oct. 1688).

  97. 97.

    On Jacobitism in Cornwall and south-west Wales, see Harris, ‘Politics and Religion’, pp. 232–8.

  98. 98.

    Devon Heritage Centre, Z11 (George Granville to earl of Bath, 4 Sept. 1711).

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    James Harris

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  1. Department of History, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Matthew Ward

  2. Department of History, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Matthew Hefferan

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Harris, J. (2020). Repeated Testimonies of Duty and Affection: Constructing Loyalty in Cornwall and South-West Wales, 1681–1685. In: Ward, M., Hefferan, M. (eds) Loyalty to the Monarchy in Late Medieval and Early Modern Britain, c.1400-1688. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37767-0_14

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