Rutland

The smallest of the ancient counties of England by some margin, Rutland was also dwarfed in terms of population and wealth by the adjoining shires of Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire. The county’s economy was based overwhelmingly upon arable farming, the rearing of sheep and cattle and the trade generated by its two modestly proportioned and ‘indifferently’ provisioned market towns, Oakham and Uppingham.1 R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 190-1. According to the 1665 hearth tax returns, Rutland contained 2,901 households, suggesting an overall population of approximately 12-14,000.2 Rutland Hearth Tax ed. J. Bourne, A. Goode (Rutland Rec. Soc. 1991), 7. The electorate numbered 288 in the disputed by-election of 1646; although voter turn-out was almost certainly lower when there was no contest.3 Leics. RO, DE730/3, ff. 54v-55. Rutland had first sent Members to Parliament in 1295 and, in the absence of any parliamentary boroughs in the county, the representation had always been confined to two knights of the shire.4 VCH Rutland, i. 173. Elections usually took place in the castle hall in Oakham, which was also the site of the county assizes and sessions.5 Blome, Britannia, 191; VCH Rutland, i. 180.

Rutland’s parliamentary representation had been dominated during the 1620s by Sir William Bulstrode of Uppingham – a kinsman of the county’s largest landowners, the Haringtons of Exton and Ridlington – and another Harington supporter, Sir Guy Palmes.6 HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Rutland’; ‘Sir William Bulstrode’. By the spring of 1640 and the elections to the Short Parliament, Bulstrode was in his late 70s and apparently did not consider standing, and his place as senior knight of the shire was taken by Baptist Noel – the eldest son of another leading Rutland landowner and kinsman of the Haringtons, Edward Noel, 2nd Viscount Campden. The second place was taken by Palmes, possibly with the assistance of Henry Hastings, 5th earl of Huntingdon, who was lord lieutenant of both Leicestershire and Rutland.7 C219/42/1/98b; J.K. Gruenfelder, Influence in Early Stuart Elections (Columbus, Ohio, 1981), 160. There is no evidence of a contest.

Noel and Palmes were re-elected for Rutland to the Long Parliament, again apparently without serious opposition.8 C219/43/2/112. A petition to the Commons from Rutland in November 1641 in support of episcopacy was purportedly signed by about 840 of the county’s freeholders and ministers.9 Nalson, Impartial Colln. ii. 656-60. And when the king passed through Rutland in March 1642 on his way to York, the high sheriff, Thomas Waite*, presented a petition to him (on 16 March) from the county’s gentlemen, ministers and ‘others of good rank’, pleading, in very loyal and humble terms, that he return to Parliament. On 29 March, however, Sir James Harington* presented petitions from the county to both the Lords and the Commons, calling for (among other things) the removal of ‘popish’ peers from the Lords; the imprisonment of ‘the greatest and most active papists’; the ‘speedy and powerful relief of our persecuted brethren in Ireland’; the ‘utter quelling the pride, insolency and tyranny of the prelates’; the ‘abolishing of all unfitting and unnecessary dignities out of the church’; and the ‘stricter sanctification of the Lord’s day’. Among the 550 or so signatories to these last two petitions were Waite, Harington and Edward Horsman*.10 LJ iv. 680b-681a; A Copie of the Petition Presented to the Kings Majesty by the High Sheriffe...of Rutland (1642, 669 f.6.1); VCH Rutland, i. 186-7; PA, Main Pprs. 29 Mar. 1642.

That summer, Noel and his father and Palmes and his eldest son Brian Palmes* were named to the Rutland commission of array while Harington’s father, Sir Edward Harington, secured the Oakham magazine for Parliament.11 Northants. RO, FH133. In July, Sir Edward informed the Speaker that

the commission of array being directed to men of great power in the county, and the innovating [i.e. Laudian] clergy being very forward to publish the books that come from his Majesty and not those from Parliament, we fear the business may receive great prejudice.12 HMC Portland, i. 43.

In December 1642, Rutland was constituted part of the Midland Association under the command of Thomas Lord Grey of Groby*.13 VCH Rutland, i. 189. When he marched into Oakham early in 1643, ‘the malignants flocked so fast’, he informed the Lords, ‘that had I not entered Rutlandshire at that very nick of time, I am confident in one week the whole county would have been drawn into a body against Parliament’.14 LJ v. 631b. Following Viscount Campden’s death at Oxford in March, Noel succeeded to his father’s title and would attend the upper House in the Oxford Parliament early in 1644.15 Infra, ‘Baptist Noel’. Palmes withdrew from the Commons at some point during the summer of 1643 and was disabled from sitting by order of the House on 28 September. He, too, attended the Oxford Parliament.16 Infra, ‘Sir Guy Palmes’.

Parliament’s tenuous hold on Rutland after 1643 was weakened by a bitter dispute between Colonel Thomas Waite, the county’s senior parliamentarian officer, and certain members of the county committee, which came to a head in the summer of 1644 and would continue for another two years. This in-fighting was largely, it seems, the result of a local power struggle over military command and resources, but it may also have had a national political dimension. Certainly Waite was a close ally of Grey of Groby, who was himself aligned with the earl of Essex’s interest at Westminster and was a prominent opponent of the war-party grandee Sir Arthur Hesilrige.17 Infra, ‘Thomas Lord Grey of Groby’; ‘Sir Arthur Hesilrige; ‘Thomas Waite’; Scotish Dove no. 132 (29 Apr.-6 May 1646), 648 (E.336.6); VCH Rutland, i. 192, 194. In October 1644, the Commons drafted an ordinance to raise money for Rutland’s defence, but the quarrel among the county’s leading parliamentarians meant that the final choice of commissioners and the passage of the legislation through both Houses was delayed until June 1645.18 CJ iii. 655b; iv. 181a, 312b; LJ vii. 17b, 27a, 443b; VCH Rutland, i. 193. Steered by Henry Grey, 1st earl of Stamford*, the Lords added Grey of Groby (Stamford’s son) and at least four more of Colonel Waite’s supporters to this commission, and the new ordinance was seen in the county as a victory for his interest.19 CJ iv. 181a, 236a; LJ vii. 39a, 307b; Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages in Parliament (4-11 Aug. 1645), 900 (E.262.41). But Waite’s enemies in Rutland hit back on 27 November, when Sir James Harington – who was evidently a leading member of the anti-Waite faction – presented a petition to the Commons that prompted the House to revive a committee for examining the dispute between the colonel and his local opponents.20 CJ iv. 356a.

On 30 September 1645, the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for holding new elections in Rutland to replace Noel and Palmes.21 CJ iv. 295b. In mid-January 1646, the House received petitions from rival groups in the county: the first, from ‘divers gentlemen and ministers’, requesting that the writ be sent down forthwith; the second – which Harington presented – from the county committee and ‘divers others’, asking that election proceedings be postponed until the dispute between Waite and the committee had been heard.22 CJ iv. 408a; VCH Rutland, i. 192. On 5 June, the Commons re-revived the committee to examine the dispute and that same day the Committee of Both Kingdoms* ordered Waite and one of his local supporters (either Samuel or Abel Barker*) to attend Derby House to explain ‘the disorders reported to have lately happened in Rutland’. In addition, the county committee was ordered to prepare evidence of Waite’s alleged ‘miscarriages’.23 CJ iv. 565b; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 440.

The Rutland ‘recruiter’ election, held at Oakham on 2 July 1646, was heavily influenced not only by the feud between Waite and the county committee, but also, it seems, by the largely personal rivalry between Waite and Harington – both of whom would emerge as prominent Independents at Westminster. The election was contested by four of the county’s leading county committeemen – Waite, Harington, Harington’s brother-in-law Christopher Browne, and Evers Armyn – and a fifth candidate, Richard Halford, who would be added to the committee in 1648. The contest went to a poll in which Harington emerged the clear winner with 241 votes; but a dispute between Waite and Browne regarding who had polled in second place led to a double return.24 Leics. RO, DE730/3, ff. 54v-55. The first indenture, which was signed by the sheriff and ten of the freeholders – including William Sheild* and four of the men added to the June 1645 Rutland commission (among them Abel Barker) – returned Harington and Waite.25 C219/43/2/114. The second indenture, dated the same day (2 July), was also signed by the sheriff and ten (different) freeholders and returned Harington and Browne.26 C219/43/2/115. Heading the lists of those who voted for Waite and Halford was Grey of Groby.27 Leics. RO, DE730/3, ff. 54v-55. The Commons debated the Rutland election on 15 July and upheld the return of Harington and Waite.28 Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 157 (14-21 July 1646), 173 (E.345.10). Both men retained their seats at Pride’s Purge, and Waite was a regicide.

The sole representative for Rutland in the Nominated Parliament of 1653 was Edward Horsman, who almost certainly owed his selection to his links with Oliver Cromwell* and his Northamptonshire kinsman Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*.29 Infra, ‘Edward Horsman’. The county retained its two seats under the Instrument of Government, and in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654 it returned William Sheild – who had married a sister of the lord protector’s son-in-law and master of horse John Claypoole* – and Horsman, in that order. The indenture was signed by six gentlemen in the name of ‘divers other persons qualified and capable to elect Members to serve in Parliament’.30 C219/44/2, unfol.

In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, the Rutland landowner and magistrate Abel Barker stood as a candidate, possibly in partnership with Christopher Browne. Shortly before the election, Browne warned Barker that Major-general William Boteler* was claiming that he could ‘allege that against you which will frustrate you and your friends’ designs in the election’.31 Leics. RO, DE730/1/70. Barker was returned notwithstanding Boteler’s evident opposition, while the other place was taken by Sheild. Barker’s royalist connections, and his less than whole-hearted support for Parliament during the civil war, were probably factors in his subsequent exclusion by the council of state as an opponent of the protectorate. Sheild and Horsman were returned for the county in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s Parliament of 1659. Rutland was represented in the restored Rump in 1659-60 by Waite and Harington.