East Retford

East Retford lay just off the Great North Road, about 30 miles north of Nottingham and 18 miles south of Doncaster, in Yorkshire.1 D. Marcombe, English Small Town Life: Retford 1520-1642 (1993), 7. The town’s economy rested largely upon its market and the processing and sale of leather and fabrics.2 Marcombe, Retford, 92, 99-102, 113, 124-5. The population of the town of Retford – that is, East and West Retford and the adjoining suburbs – stood at approximately 1,500 by the late 1630s, with the borough of East Retford accounting for between a half and two thirds of that figure.3 Marcombe, Retford, 27, 34, 285; A.C. Wood, ‘A note on the population of six Notts. towns’, Trans. Thoroton Soc. xli. 23, 24.

Granted its first charter of incorporation in 1607, East Retford was governed by a common council comprising a senior and junior bailiff and 12 aldermen. The senior and junior bailiffs were elected annually – the former by the common council from among the aldermen and the latter by the common council and freemen from two freemen nominated by the common council (the council amended the method of electing the junior bailiff in 1608, tightening its control over the town’s cursus honorum in the process). The aldermen held office for life and were elected by the common council and the freemen. The common council also appointed a steward ‘instructed in the law of England’ to preside over the borough court, a high steward – described in 1624 as the borough’s ‘protector’ – and chamberlains and other municipal officers.4 Notts. RO, DDHO 4/2; J.S. Piercy, Hist. of Retford (Retford, 1828), 31-49; Marcombe, Retford, 48, 50; HP Commons 1604-1629. East Retford had first sent Members to Parliament in 1315, but this privilege had lapsed in 1329 because of the borough’s poverty and had not been restored until 1571.5 Piercy, Retford, 51; Marcombe, Retford, 68; P. R. Seddon, ‘A parliamentary election at East Retford 1624’, Trans. Thoroton Soc. lxxvi. 26. The franchise was vested in the freemen by patrimony, apprenticeship and redemption, of whom 83 voted in the fiercely contested election of 1624. The two bailiffs acted as returning officers.6 Piercy, Retford, 55-6; Marcombe, Retford, 81; Seddon, ‘A parliamentary election at East Retford’, 31; HP Commons 1604-1629.

In the majority of elections at East Retford during the early Stuart period, the town’s high steward successfully nominated one Member, with the other place usually falling to a nominee of the Cavendishes of Welbeck or of Sir John Holles† (later 1st earl of Clare) of nearby Haughton. In the mid-1620s, however, the Cavendish and Holles interests had collapsed for various reasons, leaving the field clear in the 1628 election for Sir Gervase Clifton*, the town’s high steward, to secure the return of two of his own nominees.7 HP Commons 1604-1629. Clifton’s influence at East Retford, which derived principally from his stewardship and his standing as one of the town’s leading local landowners, was apparently unaffected by his support for the policies of the personal rule of Charles I and his intimacy with Nottinghamshire’s lord lieutenant, the future royalist general William Cavendish†, 1st earl of Newcastle.8 Infra, ‘Sir Gervase Clifton’.

With the summoning of a new Parliament late in 1639, Newcastle courted Clifton’s support for the return of both his son Charles Cavendish, Viscount Mansfield* and of the carpetbagging courtier Endymion Porter*.9 Nottingham Univ. Lib. CL C 344, 606; P.R. Seddon, ‘The Notts. elections for the Short Parliament’, Trans. Thoroton Soc. lxxx. 66-7. Clifton threw all of the earl’s calculations into confusion, however, by choosing to stand for the borough himself rather than, as his friends had assumed, the senior place as a knight of the shire.10 Nottingham Univ. Lib. CL C 295, 684. During December 1639, Newcastle and his electoral manager Robert Butler gently tried to persuade him to opt for one of the county places, thus leaving room at East Retford for Mansfield and Porter.11 Nottingham Univ. Lib. CL C 295, 344, 606. But Clifton was immoveable. Another local magnate with his eye on a seat at East Retford for one of his sons was the future royalist Robert Pierrepont, 1st earl of Kingston. Kingston was a close friend of both Newcastle (his cousin) and Clifton and was anxious not to let his electoral pretensions offend either man. He was delighted, therefore, when Clifton agreed to recommend first his eldest son Henry Pierrepont†, and then – when Kingston decided that Henry was deficient in ‘knowledge and honest resolutions’ – his younger son Francis Pierrepont* for the junior place. Both Newcastle and Kingston wrote to the bailiffs and aldermen independently of Clifton, courting their support. But both men seem to have realised that without the high steward’s ‘powerful assistance’ their suits would not prevail.12 Nottingham Univ. Lib. CL C 294-5, 684. In the event, the borough returned Clifton and Pierrepont as expected. The indenture, dated 26 March 1640, stated that the two men had been returned ‘with the whole assent and consent’ of the freemen.13 C219/42/1/168.

In the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, the East Retford freemen again returned Clifton for the senior place, but on this occasion the junior place went to Viscount Mansfield. It seems likely that Mansfield’s return was the result of an electoral arrangement between Clifton and Newcastle, whereby the earl acquiesced in the return of Francis Pierrepont for the Short Parliament on the understanding that Clifton would back Mansfield next time round. The indenture, dated 19 October 1640, again stated that the freemen had made their choice ‘with one whole assent and consent’.14 Notts. RO, DD/HO/18/1.

The corporation records for East Retford have not survived and therefore very little is known about the town’s political complexion during the mid-seventeenth century. In the early 1640s, in a letter dated ‘19 July’, the minister of East Retford, Henry Bate, warned Clifton that all but two or three of the aldermen were ‘utterly averse’ to a ‘protestation’ that Sir Gervase and other Nottinghamshire grandees had recently presented to the king, and Bate requested Clifton’s help in mending the townsmen’s ways: ‘a word of yours (who are so much in their thoughts) will prevail more then hundreds of mine to make them fear God and honour the king’.15 Nottingham Univ. Lib. CL C 17; HMC Var. vii. 424. This letter has been seen as evidence that the leading townsmen were opposed to the parliamentary Protestation of May 1641.16 Marcombe, Retford, 61; D. Cressey, ‘The Protestation protested, 1641 and 1642’, HJ xlv. 275-6. Yet the Protestation was never tendered to the king and certainly not on a county-by-county basis. Moreover, it was generally only Catholics who were averse to taking it, and East Retford was far from being a hotbed of popery – Catholic recusancy was ‘exceedingly rare’ in the town, and its wealthiest and most influential families were trenchantly Protestant.17 Marcombe, Retford, 186, 250, 254, 256-60. It is no surprise, therefore, that when the Protestation was tendered to the townsmen in about March 1642, the return stated that there were ‘non denying’.18 PA, Main Pprs. Protestation Returns Nbld. and Notts. A, 1642. The ‘protestation’ referred to in Bate’s letter was probably the ‘remonstrance’ that the Nottinghamshire royalists addressed to the king in the summer of 1642 (but not printed until March 1643), denouncing Parliament’s declaration of 26 May in support of the Nineteen Propositions as an affront to royal authority and the ancient constitution, ‘and [we] do … protest against the same’.19 His Maiesties Letter to the Maior of Bristol (1643), 4-5 (E.93.8).

Both Clifton and Mansfield sided with the king in the civil war and were disabled from sitting as MPs – Mansfield by order of the Commons on 22 January 1644; Clifton as a result of an order of 1 January 1646 that a writ be issued for new elections at East Retford.20 CJ iii. 374a; iv. 394a. The resulting by-election was held on 4 March 1646 and saw the return of Colonel Francis Thornhagh and the Yorkshire knight Sir William Lister.21 Notts. RO, DD/HO/18/2. Thornhagh probably owed his return to the strength of his interest as head of one of Nottinghamshire’s leading gentry families and as the owner of lands at nearby Fenton and Sturton le Steeple. His prominent role on the Nottinghamshire county committee and reputation as a brave and successful soldier may also have played well with the freemen.22 Infra, ‘Francis Thornhagh’. Lister on the other hand was a carpetbagger and probably owed his election to Francis Pierrepont, who had been returned as a ‘recruiter’ for Nottingham in 1645. Pierrepont had probably recommended Lister to the borough as a favour to their common friend and political collaborator the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*).23 Infra, ‘Sir William Lister’; ‘Francis Pierrepont’. Once again, the indenture stated that Thornhagh and Lister had been returned ‘by one whole consent and assent’ of the freemen.24 Notts. RO, DD/HO/18/2.

Neither Thornhagh nor Lister made much impact at Westminster and both were to be among the military and political casualties of 1648. Thornhagh was killed leading a charge against the Scots in the aftermath of the battle of Preston in August, and Lister was among those secluded at Pride’s Purge – although exactly how he had offended the army is not clear.25 Infra, ‘Francis Thornhagh’; ‘Sir William Lister’. On 18 November 1648, the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for a new election at East Retford to replace Thornhagh, and on 21 December, the freemen returned the local gentry landowner Edward Neville with ‘one whole consent and assent’.26 CJ vi. 80a; C219/43/2/82. Neville’s main residence was at Grove, just two miles from East Retford, and he owned much of the land to the east of the town. He was also a friend or close acquaintance of the town’s steward by the late 1640s, William Cartwright*. Neville was admitted to sit in the House on 5 May 1649, but figured very little in the Rump’s proceedings.27 ‘Infra, ‘Henry Neville’.

Disenfranchised under the Instrument of Government of 1653, East Retford regained its seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659, which saw the return of Sir Gervase Clifton’s son Clifford Clifton and Cartwright.28 Infra, ‘Clifford Clifton’; ‘William Cartwright’. The indenture has not survived. The borough returned royalists to both the 1660 Convention and the Cavalier Parliament.29 HP Commons 1660-1690.