Ipswich

In the seventeenth century Ipswich was still one of the major ports on the east coast of England. Roger Coke (son of Henry Coke*) called it ‘the finest town in England, and had the noblest harbour on the east, and most convenient for the trade of the northern and eastern parts of the world’.1 R. Coke, A Detection of the Court and State of England (1694), i. 358. William Camden had found it ‘a little city, and of a low situation, but, as it were, the eye of this county’, an image which also occurred to another visitor in the 1630s.2 W. Camden, Britannia ed. E. Gibson (1772), i. 368; A Relation of a Short Survey of the Western Counties ed. L.G. Wickham Legg, Cam. Misc. XVI (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lii), 4. The town stood at the highest navigable point of the Orwell estuary and from it the main roads to Great Yarmouth, Norwich, Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge, and Colchester radiated out into the East Anglian hinterland. There was no port north of London which could claim to be significantly closer to the continent. It had for several centuries exported first the wool and later the cloth on which the wealth of the region had largely depended. Unfortunately, as a result of the terminal crisis in Suffolk cloth production, the amount of cloth exported through Ipswich dwindled away to almost nothing between the 1620s and the 1650s.3 F. Grace, ‘Economy, government and society in Ipswich, c.1500-c.1830’, Ipswich from the First to the Third Millenium (Ipswich, 2001), 20-3. Within a generation the town lost the principal source of its wealth. Yet, Ipswich adjusted with far fewer difficulties than those inland Suffolk towns which had relied on production alone. There were innumerable other commodities its merchants could ship in and out. Not least was sea-coal from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the use of which was rapidly growing. Moreover, by the mid-1630s there were claims that the ship-building industry in the town had become so large that shortage of land was impeding further expansion.4 CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 545-6; 1634-5, p. 38; 1635, pp. 22-3; Bacon, Annalls, 509. The area covered by the town was, in fact, large relative to the size of its population, hence a remark by one of the Killigrews to Charles II later in the century that Ipswich had ‘a river without water, streets without names, and a town without people’.5 J.S. Corder, ‘Extracts from the diary of Sir James Thornhill’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. xiii. 35.

Since the thirteenth century Ipswich had been returning Members to Parliament and successive charters had vested the franchise in the freemen of the town. Heading the corporation were two bailiffs, who were elected from among the 12 portmen and regularly changed each year at Michaelmas. Beneath the portmen ranked the 24 chief constables (the common councilmen or ‘the twenty-four’) and these, together with the freemen, formed the great court of the borough. In 1633 the town surrendered its charter in the face of a quo warranto writ from the crown but the new charter, issued in 1635, altered neither the corporation hierarchy nor the parliamentary franchise.6 CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 286; Ipswich Borough Archives 1255-1835 ed. D. Allen (Suff. Recs. Soc. xliii), 2. The town had a strong tradition of sturdy independence from outside interference.7 D. MacCulloch, Suff. under the Tudors (Oxford, 1986), 43-4, 46-7.

Another strong tradition valued by the town was its reputation as a place where Reformed Christianity flourished. Archbishop Laud correctly viewed it as one of the principal centres of opposition to his policies. During the period when the arch-Laudian Matthew Wren occupied the see of Norwich, the conflict between the town's churches and the episcopal authorities was famously acute. The experience of the 1630s ensured that when Parliament eventually had the chance to go on the offensive, Ipswich would give its full support to the attack on the Laudian episcopate.

The crisis of relations between the diocese and the borough in fact predated Bishop Wren's appointment. In 1634 hostilities opened with the case brought in the court of high commission against the leading Ipswich cleric, Samuel Ward, for objecting to liturgical innovation. Unlike the previous attempt by the diocese to prosecute him in 1622, this new suit in November 1635 resulted in Ward’s suspension from his benefice at the corporation's church, St Mary-le-Tower.8 CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 450-1; 1634-5, pp. 321, 326, 331, 361-2, 417-18, 490, 546; 1635, pp. 192, 198, 207; 1635-6, pp. 98, 103, 109, 111, 116, 129, 470, 478. By now Wren had been appointed bishop in succession to Francis White. Within months he had set in motion a visitation of the diocese intended to enforce the full Laudian programme.9 Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 20-22v; Articles to be Inquired of within the Dioces of Norwich (1636).

On 4 April 1636 his commissioners visited Ipswich. Arriving at St Mary-le-Tower they found its doors closed against them. The bailiffs were said to have refused to assist in unlocking (though the bailiffs disputed this), the commissioners were threatened by the crowd, and seditious comments were made about the queen and the lack of a Parliament.10 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C2/18. Once the commissioners were allowed to proceed, they suspended three of the local clergymen who were deemed to have breached the approved forms of church services.11 Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 30v, 49, 50, 293; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 353. In a separate case, one of the churchwardens of St Mary-le-Tower was disciplined for treating the diocesan officials with contempt. The churchwarden then retaliated by bringing a corruption case against Henry Dade, the commissary of the archdeaconry of Suffolk, who had been behind the prosecution of Ward.12 Bodl. Tanner 68, f. 1v; CSP Dom. 1635, pp. 86, 518; 1635-6, pp. 47, 51, 429, 565; 1640-1, p. 344; [W. Prynne], Newes from Ipswich (1636), sig. [A4v].

That summer Wren stayed in Ipswich, believing (in Laud’s words) that ‘that side of his diocese did most need his presence, and he found it so’, but this only made matters worse.13 The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud (1847-60), v. 339. The communion service he conducted at St Mary-le-Tower was later cited in the impeachment articles against him as the example of his use of ‘superstitious and idolatrous actions and gestures’.14 Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 354. In July 1636 the corporation met to discuss reports that Wren planned to take legal action against them and on 11 August a crowd attacked the bishop’s house in the town.15 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, f. 136; C2/18: bill of attorney general, 1637, rots. 3-4. Largely as a consequence of Wren’s policies, several of churches in the town were without incumbents and that autumn he began to apply pressure on them to select replacements.16 Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 137, 139, 142, 144. Perhaps as he had intended, this developed into a dispute over the special patronage rights the town claimed for some of its churches. Based on a private act of 1571, five of the local churches (St Mary-le-Tower, St Mary Quay, St Mary Elms, St Nicholas and St Lawrence) argued that their parishioners had the right to make appointments to these cures and that they had powers to levy rates to pay the stipends. Wren was prepared to dispute all this. William Prynne*’s pamphlet, Newes from Ipswich (1636), contributed to making this a cause célèbre.

Resistance to Wren’s orders, in particular those for the repositioning of communion tables ‘altarwise’, led to the excommunication of the churchwardens of most of the town’s churches in March 1637.17 Bodl. Tanner 68, f. 198. On 29 March the privy council ruled that the five parishes named in the 1571 act had obligations to levy rates to support their ministers and that furthermore, as the act did not bear out the claims of the parishioners, the patronage rights should pass to the crown.18 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, f. 141; CSP Dom. 1636-7, pp. 529-30. A ruling two months later extended the obligation to levy rates to all the Ipswich churches.19 CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 144, 160. By then the attorney-general had instigated legal proceedings in star chamber against those believed to have organized the unrest in April and August 1636, including William Cage* who, as one of the town’s justices of the peace, was accused of not having done enough to keep order.20 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C2/18. This case was still before the courts in 1639.21 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C6/1/5, f. 152v. The town remained a source of worry to Wren until his translation to Ely in April 1638.22 Bodl. Tanner 68, ff. 244, 327; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 226; 1639-40, p. 221. His successor, Richard Montague, was unlikely to inspire greater confidence among the Ipswich godly: Ward had led a campaign against his works in 1624, accusing their author of popery. However, Montague’s relations with the Ipswich churches were not as openly hostile as Wren’s and he never attracted quite the odium in the town his predecessor had done.

Since Samuel Ward was the most notable casualty of the disputes of the previous decade, his death in March 1640 probably helped set the tone for the Ipswich elections to the first Parliament that year. Ward’s funeral was held in St Mary-le-Tower on 8 March.23 Oxford DNB, ‘Samuel Ward’. Twelve days later the great court met to select the town’s two MPs. The senior place was again given to William Cage, who had represented the town in the six previous Parliaments. Cage’s colleague in the 1628 Parliament, Edmund Deye†, was once more a candidate but faced the ignominy of defeat by an outsider unconnected with the town, John Gurdon. Gurdon secured 104 votes from the freemen, while Deye received only 95.24 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/3, ff. 301v-302A; C219/42, no. 25; Harl. 298, f. 148; Bacon, Annalls, 522. Gurdon must have had the backing of some beyond the ranks of the senior members of the corporation, perhaps even including that of the leading peer in the neighbouring county, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†).25 D. Heavens, ‘“To be Doers of what you have been Hearers”: The politics and religion of the town governors of Ipswich, c.1635-c.1665’ (Essex Univ. PhD thesis, 2012), 148-9. Deye died shortly before the town’s second parliamentary election of that year.

The election to the Long Parliament almost witnessed a contest involving a second outsider, for Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston* considered putting up his eldest son, Thomas*, for the seat. Asked for his advice, Cage informed him that, while the town would support Sir Nathaniel for the county seat, he himself was considering standing again at Ipswich. Barnardiston accepted this and instead turned his attention to getting his son nominated at Sudbury.26 Harl. 384, f. 64. As it happened, the contest at Sudbury then caused problems for Gurdon, for the last-minute decision by the mayor of Sudbury to move the election there to 26 October the same day as the Ipswich election was a transparent attempt to split the Gurdon interest.27 Procs. LP i. 511. The tactic worked as planned, for Gurdon’s father, Brampton Gurdon†, was defeated at Sudbury, but the Gurdons at least had the consolation that, in the absence of any other candidates still in the field on election day, John was re-elected at Ipswich.28 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/3, ff. 305, 306v; C1/1/3/3; C219/43/2, no. 172; Bacon, Annalls, 525.

There were, however, doubts over the legality of Cage’s return. On 29 September he had become a bailiff for the coming year.29 Bacon, Annalls, 523. Since the two bailiffs in Ipswich were required to sign election indentures on the corporation’s behalf, there was a strong argument that the prohibition against the returning of sheriffs and mayors extended to them as well. Cage would, in effect, be his own returning officer. On 10 October the sheriff of Suffolk, Sir Simonds D'Ewes*, (having been informed of Cage’s plans by Barnardiston) wrote to Lord Chief Justice Littleton (Edward Littleton†) expressing concern at Cage’s intentions: ‘his stirring, in my opinion, against law hath occasioned two of my quarrels’.30 Autobiography and Corresp. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell (1845), ii. 247. There was more than a touch of hypocrisy in this complaint for D’Ewes was himself to be elected as MP for Sudbury, despite his shrievalty. That perhaps softened his objections, for in December 1641, when the Knaresborough election was being disputed, he would recall Cage’s election as a possible precedent for the return of a serving bailiff.31 D'Ewes (C), 242-3; Harl. 158, ff. 289v-290. As there was no losing candidate to raise objections, doubts over the Ipswich return were overlooked by the Commons and quietly forgotten by all but the pedantic D’Ewes.

The early months of the Long Parliament were used by the town to lobby on various matters of concern to it. The corporation dispatched three of its number, Peter Fisher, Robert Dunkon* and John Brandlinge*, to London in November 1640. Their stated mission was to assist Cage and Gurdon in resisting attempts by a groom of the bedchamber, George Kirke†, and the queen’s master of the horse, Henry Jermyn*, to claim that the corporation held lands which, as they had formerly belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, should properly have been confiscated to the crown.32 Bacon, Annalls, 525; Suff. RO (Ipswich), C1/7A/3. On 19 December 1640 Fisher and Dunkon also presented a petition to the Commons from the inhabitants of Ipswich, detailing the town’s complaints against Bishop Wren and requesting that action be taken against him.33 CJ ii. 54b; Bodl. Tanner 220, ff. 7-43. Arrangements were immediately made by the Commons to order that Wren provide bail pending action by Parliament against him. Three days later a committee was set up by the Commons to investigate the Ipswich petition, with the clear objective being Wren’s impeachment.34 CJ ii. 54b-56a. It took just over a fortnight for the petition to produce results. On 6 January 1641 the king reversed the 1637 orders-in-council on the Ipswich churches.35 PC Reg. xii. 76; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 409-10. The Ipswich corporation then began an attempt to organize the passage of a new act to re-assert the parishioners’’ rights under the act of 1571.36 Bacon, Annalls, 526; Suff. ed. Everitt, 110. When the articles of impeachment against Wren were completed in July 1641, the Ipswich complaints figured as key allegations among them.37 Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 351-5. The Commons’ failure to pursue the matter much further must have been a considerable disappointment to the bishop’s many enemies in the town.

On 12 February 1642 the corporation presented another petition to the Commons, expressing support for the Grand Remonstrance and the militia bill, as well as calling for reformation in the church, action to defeat the Irish rebels, the exclusion of Catholic peers from the Lords and the disarming of recusants.38 CJ ii. 428a; The Humble Petitions of the Bailifes, Port-men, and other the Inhabitants of Ipswich (1641, E.135.35). Both Cage and Gurdon would have wholeheartedly supported such a programme. Their decision to back Parliament in its conflict with the king was in accordance with the dominant viewpoint in Ipswich. In 1643 the corporation rewarded their services by voting £100 to Gurdon and two sums totalling £150 to Cage.39 Bacon, Annalls, 532, 535; J. Sansom, ‘Payments of MPs’, N and Q, 2nd ser. iv. 275.

Cage’s death on 4 November 1645 created a vacancy for the election of a new MP. Had he died a few months earlier, there can be little doubt that his successor would have been the town’s recorder, Nathaniel Bacon*, who was also chairman of the standing committee of the Eastern Association meeting at Cambridge. Bacon was already in line to be chosen in the by-election for Cambridge University and the previous month, in writing to the Ipswich corporation to inform them of this development, he had offered reassurance as to his continuing devotion to the town’s interests.40 Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD36/2672/78A. His election for the university seat was confirmed on 27 November and he could then use his own influence in the Ipswich election. When the freemen met on 8 January 1646, they elected by way of a substitute for him, his younger brother, Francis Bacon*, another lawyer.41 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/4, f. 21. These events were not unlike those of the 1614 election: then the Bacons’ late uncle, Sir Francis Bacon† (the future lord keeper) had chosen Cambridge University over Ipswich and made possible Cage’s first election to Parliament.

Francis Bacon served through until December 1648, when he was excluded from the Commons by the army’s purge. He was granted re-admission in June 1649, but there is some doubt as to whether he resumed his seat.42 CJ vi. 225b, 297a, 298a; Worden, Rump Parl. 72, 389. Although he almost certainly disapproved of the purge and of the regicide, Gurdon took his seat in the Rump and became an active participant in its proceedings.

Under the terms of the 1653 Instrument of Government Ipswich regained its direct representation in Parliament: with Bury St Edmunds it was one of the two Suffolk boroughs which retained their right to return two MPs. For Nathaniel Bacon, the restriction under the Instrument of the representation of Cambridge University to only one seat probably ruled out the possibility of re-election for that constituency. That single place was taken by the even more eminent Henry Cromwell II*, the lord protector’s son. The Ipswich corporation did not wait for the university’s decision but held their own election on 22 June 1654. The freemen then approved the return of both Nathaniel and Francis Bacon, although only the former was present at the meeting. John Gurdon seems not to have made a second attempt at Ipswich and the next month he was elected for a more prestigious county seat. The corporation commanded the Bacons ‘to see and consent unto such things as shall be there ordained provided that they shall not intermeddle in the altering the government as it is now established under one man and the Parliament’.43 C219/44/2, no. 26; Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/4, f. 83v; E. Anglian, n.s. ii. 183. Whether they fully obeyed this instruction, especially Nathaniel, is open to question. Once at Westminster the elder Bacon showed no hesitation in involving himself in this Parliament’s efforts to revise the constitutional settlement dictated by the Instrument of Government.

The 1654 election was the first of four elections in which Nathaniel and Francis Bacon were returned for Ipswich. Both men were now figures of some standing both locally and nationally. Despite Nathaniel’s involvement in the 1654 Parliament with those suspicious of the protectorate, the two Bacons found favour at Cromwell’s court. In 1655 Nathaniel became one of the protector’s masters of requests, and not long afterwards another mastership was given to Francis.

In 1656 the Ipswich freemen again agreed to the Bacons as their MPs.44 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/4, f. 96; E. Anglian, n.s. iii. 177. As before, they were returned unopposed, the only incident of note at the meeting on 4 August being the protest made by one of those present at the wording of the indenture. Robert Manning intervened during its reading (after the decision to return the Bacons had been agreed) to object to the use of the phrase ‘his highness’s Parliament’, arguing that kings had never used such proprietary language. One of the bailiffs, John Brandlinge*, settled the point by successfully moving that the wording should stand. Manning responded with the warning that they should ‘choose no sword-men, nor none that are the protector’s friends’ in the forthcoming county election.45 TSP v. 297. Nathaniel Bacon, at least, already counted as someone closely associated with Cromwell and Manning’s intervention has the appearance of a symbolic protest, fueled by frustration, which he probably knew was bound to be ignored. The one matter which it is known the corporation raised with their MPs during this Parliament was their desire to ban the St George’s and St James’s fairs in the town by means of legislation.46 E. Anglian, n.s. iii. 267.

The decision to return the Bacons again for the 1659 Parliament was largely a foregone conclusion. The only development which threatened to make it otherwise was an unsuccessful attempt by some in Cambridge to arrange for Nathaniel Bacon to become their MP once again.47 TSP vii. 587. It is unlikely that there had been any other serious contenders before the Ipswich corporation met on 30 December 1658 to approve the Bacons’ election.48 Suff. RO (Ipswich), C5/14/4, f. 120; E. Anglian, n.s. v. 205-6; C219/48: Ipswich election indenture, 18 Jan. 1659. The decision to replace this Parliament with the recalled Rump need not have made any difference to the town’s wish to be represented by the Bacons but, as in 1649, brothers probably took a decision against attending. Gurdon, on the other hand, resumed his seat in the Rump at this point. In August 1659, when the corporation wanted the town militia restored to its old form, they asked Nathaniel Bacon to draft the petition, but others carried it up to London, and, instead of taking up the matter himself, Bacon asked Speaker William Lenthall and Gurdon to do so.49 E. Anglian, n.s. v. 383; vi. 60. Bacon and his brother probably only resumed attending the House after the return of the secluded Members in February 1660.

The calling of the Convention in March 1660 gave the Bacons yet another opportunity to sit for Ipswich. It took death and fresh elections to end their monopoly on these seats. Nathaniel died in August 1660, while Francis probably declined to press his candidature in April 1661.