Isle of Ely

The Fens, the low-lying area to the south of the Wash, had always been little more than marshland or, at best, prone to regular flooding. Although he had a vested interest in stressing the barrenness of this strange landscape, the engineer, Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, described it in 1642 with the eye of an expert.

The Level is broad, and of great extent, and flat, with little or no descent of its own, and grown full of hassocks, sedge, and reed, and the rivers full of weeds; and the waters go slowly away from the lands and out of the rivers, and they come swift into and upon it out of the upland counties, where the rivers have a great fall.1 C. Vermuïden, A Discourse touching the Drayning the Great Fennes (1642, E.143.14), 5.

Over the centuries a distinctive way of life had evolved here to make the most of these difficult conditions. That had all changed in the 1630s when Charles I had sponsored the most radical of all possible solutions to the hardships imposed by this landscape the draining of the Great Level. This vast project, far more ambitious than earlier reclamation schemes, was begun in 1631 by a consortium headed by the 4th earl of Bedford (Sir Francis Russell†). Vermuyden summed up the case for the project when he argued that

The soil of this vast country is moorish, gathered and grown up higher by weeds and ouse of the waters, many of them are rich grounds, and all would (if they were well drained) be very profitable and become good grounds, especially after they be burned, manured, and husbanded as such grounds should be.2 Vermuïden, Discourse, 6.

Unsatisfied with the progress made by Bedford and his partners, the king had taken over the scheme in 1638, employing Vermuyden to finish the job.3 S. Wells, The Hist. of the Drainage of the Great Level (1830), 105-289; H.C. Darby, The Draining of the Fens (Cambridge, 1940), 23-82; L.E. Harris, Vermuyden and the Fens (1953); M.A. Knittl, ‘The design for the initial drainage of the Great Level of the Fens’, Agricultural Hist. Review, lv, 23-50; E.H. Ash, The Drainng of the Fens (Baltimore, 2017), 195-204. It was the greatest English engineering achievement of the age. It was also a massive disruption to the livelihood of the inhabitants and the area covered by the scheme witnessed sporadic outbreaks of violence against the undertakers.4 Lindley, Fenland Riots, 83-6, 92-105.

The liberty of the Isle of Ely was a territorial unit which predated the Norman Conquest. Essentially the estates of the bishop and the cathedral chapter of Ely, it covered the hundreds of Ely, North and South Witchford, and Wisbech, and thus included most of the fenland within Cambridgeshire. The Reformation had left the liberty as something of an administrative hybrid. The bishop’s men had still, in many respects, been able to govern it as if it was his own personal fiefdom. The duties of the chief bailiff, his senior officer within the liberty, were similar to those of a sheriff elsewhere, and an episcopal official, the chief justice, presided at the local assizes. There was a separate commission of the peace.

Yet the powers of the sheriff of Cambridgeshire did not always stop at the River Ouse and no distinction was made between the two halves of the county for tax purposes. From March 1654 commissioners exercised the powers hitherto enjoyed by the bishops within the liberty.5 TSP iii. 233. The two towns within its boundaries, Ely and Wisbech, were perennial rivals. The presence of the cathedral had made Ely the bishop’s powerbase, but it was that which had also always prevented the incorporation of the borough.6 VCH Cambs. iv. 28. The power of the bishop had been most evident in the late 1630s, when Matthew Wren had held the see and when the diocese had experienced Laudianism in its most undiluted form. Following the abolition of episcopacy, the town faced an uncertain future. Wisbech, on the other hand, had been incorporated since 1549 and retained the advantage of being a port accessible from the Wash. The hearth tax returns for 1662, 1666 and 1674 suggest that Ely had marginally more inhabitants than Wisbech.7 VCH Cambs. iv. 274-8. The Compton census of 1676 confirms this point.8 Compton Census, 162-3. The assizes and the quarter sessions alternated between the two.

The liberty had never previously had separate representation. Ely, as a borough, had once, in 1295, sent MPs to Parliament, but thereafter had been the only cathedral city in England not represented at Westminster. Wisbech had never been a parliamentary constituency. The decision to enfranchise the Isle as part of the redistribution of seats in the Instrument of Government of 1653 fitted neatly into the policy of increasing country representation at the expense of the boroughs. In Cambridgeshire, which had hitherto returned two MPs, there were now six – four for Cambridgeshire, which was now deemed to cover only those areas south of the Ouse, and two for the Isle of Ely. Elsewhere, these six MPs would simply have been elected by the whole county, but the historic anomaly of the Ely liberty allowed subdivision here. Something similar occurred with regard to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and to the county palatine of Durham, the greatest of all the former episcopal liberties.9 A. and O. Perhaps the decision to split Cambridgeshire was the idea of Oliver Cromwell*? As a former resident of Ely and lay rector of the local tithes, he was intimately acquainted with the peculiarities of the liberty and its administration and with localist sensibilities.

With no precedents to draw on, the organisation of the first election within the Isle of Ely required tact and diplomacy. But George Glapthorne*, who as chief bailiff was the designated returning officer, was intent only on using his powers to promote his own personal interests. He was an unpopular figure in the area. As an agent of both the king and the earl of Bedford, he had played a leading part in the drainage of the Great Level, and in 1641 he and another Bedford agent, Francis Underwood, had been the focus of complaints by the residents of their home parish of Whittlesey.10 PA, Main Pprs. 26 June 1643, annexed petition of inhabitants of Whittlesey, [1641]; LJ iv. 224b-225a, 269b, 312a, 336a, 453a; Lindley, Fenland Riots, 116, 157-9. In 1643 some of them physically threatened him because he supported Parliament.11 PA, Main Pprs. 24 May 1643, affidavit of John Newton; LJ vi. 83b. He had then worked closely with Henry Ireton* in the administration of the Isle during the war years of the 1640s. Underwood had in the meantime risen to become a lieutenant-colonel in the army, and he and John Thurloe*, the secretary of state, now joined together to seek election as the first Ely MPs. Thurloe probably had family connections with Landbeach, a village just to the south of the liberty, and he had recently acquired Wisbech Castle, a former residence of the bishops of Ely. His new prominence in the area, combined with his unrivalled access to the protector, made him a strong candidate for the senior place. This was his first attempt to enter Parliament. Together he and Underwood probably expected no trouble.

Glapthorne, however, announced his intention to challenge Underwood for the junior place. Complaints later submitted to the council of state reveal that Glapthorne resorted to every possible underhand tactic. It was alleged that he used the under-bailiffs to intimidate the voters; that he decided to hold the election at Wisbech, where his support was strongest, but gave the impression to Underwood’s supporters that it would be held at Ely; that at the poll on 12 July he replaced one of the clerks with one of his own men; that he disallowed some of Underwood’s supporters who were qualified to vote, while allowing some of his own supporters who were not; that a horde of drunken Glapthorne followers discouraged the Underwood supporters from voting; that he closed the poll before all the votes had been cast, and that he had refused to allow Underwood to see the pollbooks.12 SP18/75, ff. 12-15. In all, 124 people, mostly from Whittlesey and Thorney, claimed they had been prevented from voting for Underwood.13 SP18/75, ff. 16-17. It may be significant that at least 36 of the excluded were Walloon refugees who had been encouraged to settle at Thorney by the earl of Bedford.14 H. Falvey, ‘Interpreting the Instrument of Government’, PH xxxi. 147-9. These tactics worked and Glapthorne was able to return himself and Thurloe as the new MPs.15 C219/44, pt. 1: Isle of Ely indenture, 12 July 1654.

This result was immediately contested. A petition criticising Glapthorne’s behaviour and signed by 357 inhabitants was submitted to the council of state.16 SP18/75, f. 12; A brief Relation of the Proceedings before his Highness Councel [1654], 1 (E.814.2). Quite apart from the questionable methods he had employed to get elected, Glapthorne’s critics had two powerful arguments against him. First, the election was invalid because Glapthorne had been his own returning officer.17 SP18/75, f. 12. It was well established that this practice was usually illegal, although it was not unknown for the Commons to overlook it. Secondly, Glapthorne did not fulfil the requirement in the Instrument of Government that only those ‘persons of known integrity, fearing God and of good conversation’ should be allowed to sit in Parliament. A memorandum submitted by the petitioners along with their petition did not hold back in its denunciation of Glapthorne’s character. Imprisonment for debt, swearing, drunkenness and a failure to maintain order in his family all figured.18 SP18/75, f. 15; Brief Relation, 1.

Glapthorne responded by attacking Underwood. He contrasted his own selfless service for Parliament during the civil war with the large estate Underwood had meanwhile acquired for himself. He then accused Underwood of working with another army officer, Richard Harrison, who had allegedly nursed a grudge ever since Glapthorne had accused him of embezzling public funds during the civil war. Harrison had used these ill-gotten gains to buy some fenland, thereby defrauding the inhabitants, and then telling them that it was Glapthorne who planned to drain their lands. Glapthorne claimed the petitions against him were organised by Underwood and Harrison in a malicious attempt to defame his good name.19 SP18/75, f. 19v. Commissioners despatched by the council of state gathered evidence on 26 and 27 August from Glapthorne’s neighbours at Whittlesey which unanimously confirmed the accusations of profanity, drunkenness and serial adultery. The council offered Glapthorne the opportunity to reply, but heard nothing more from him.20 SP18/75, f. 71; Brief Relation, 2-8. There is evidence neither of a formal decision excluding Glapthorne from Parliament nor of him ever taking his seat. It is likely that the council let the matter quietly drop and that Glapthorne did not dare sit while his case was unresolved. His opponents seem to have been unsatisfied with this outcome, for by early November 1654 they had published the texts of the depositions outlining the extent of Glapthorne’s moral shortcomings.21 Brief Relation. All in all, it had proved to be an especially unedifying first election.

If, as seems likely, Glapthorne’s enemies had hoped to discredit him as chief bailiff, they failed. As well as retaining this position, he was evidently regarded by his superiors as an effective public servant. During the next parliamentary elections in 1656 the deputy major-general for East Anglia, Hezekiah Haynes*, relied heavily on him for advice about developments in the Isle of Ely. In early July, even before the writs for the new Parliament had been issued, Haynes visited Wisbech to sound out opinion there. He made a point of consulting Glapthorne and the town’s lecturer, William Sheldrake.22 TSP v. 165, 297. Haynes visited Wisbech again the following month to find the locals arguing over his decision to hold the poll at Ely. It would seem that Thurloe had already indicated that he wished to stand again. Eager to assist another loyal servant of the protector, and calculating that Thurloe’s support would be greater towards the south of the liberty, Haynes proposed shifting the poll to Ely, inventing the excuse that the elections should alternate between the two towns. But Glapthorne was adamant that this was a matter for the chief bailiff and that Haynes had no right to interfere with his prerogatives. He was no doubt also eager to block any move which might call into doubt his own ruling on the matter in 1654. Haynes backed down, advising Thurloe on 15 August that insisting on a poll at Ely would damage his support in the Wisbech area. Some were even claiming that the Ely proposal was a ploy by Robert Castell*, supposedly one of Thurloe’s leading backers, to undermine his support in the northern parts of the county. Haynes deferred to Glapthorne, convinced by assurances that ‘he better understood the isle, and the temper of them, than myself, and that it would be dangerous to trust this election in any other place’.23 TSP v. 311-12.

Meanwhile, some at Wisbech were trying to persuade Haynes to stand. Haynes was cautious. At this stage everyone agreed that Thurloe would get the senior seat. The one other person who had expressed an interest in standing was William Fisher*, a local gentleman who had probably refused to serve the commonwealth following the regicide. Fisher expected backing from Thurloe, even though, as Haynes told Thurloe, ‘his compliance to your desires will certainly be forced’.24 TSP v. 312. Haynes realised that Fisher would be difficult to beat and that, as he and Thurloe were both outsiders, his candidature might well damage Thurloe’s chances. For the time being, Haynes preferred to concentrate his efforts elsewhere, perhaps conscious that his rule in East Anglia had been acutely unpopular and that, for many, he personally represented all that was wrong with the major-generals. He soon discovered the depth of this hatred, suffering a double defeat in the Norwich and Suffolk elections on 20 August. His success in the Essex election eased the humiliation, but that result was now used against him in the Isle of Ely: Fisher denounced Haynes as ‘a stranger, a soldier, and elected in another place’.25 TSP v. 353.

With election day at Wisbech approaching, Haynes paid another visit to the town. En route he happened to meet Fisher’s son, who assured him that he had tried to dissuade his father from standing, but that Fisher had found ‘the solicitations of friends so strong, and his own engagements to the country so great, that he could not decline it’.26 TSP v. 352. Consultation with his leading supporters at Wisbech (including Glapthorne, Sheldrake and Castell) confirmed that Fisher’s campaign was very well organised. Worse, it was rumoured that Fisher now intended to stand against Thurloe, raising the prospect that the secretary of state might be relegated to second place or even defeated. Haynes told Thurloe that he thought Fisher was being put up to it by outsiders, but Fisher probably gave the real reason when he told Haynes that he was ‘no longer able to lie under a cloud’.27 TSP v. 352-3. Concluding that he was powerless, Haynes probably withdrew from the contest shortly before the poll at Wisbech on 28 August to avoid the likely humiliation, while Fisher probably gave Thurloe a clear run for the senior seat, in the knowledge that he would be unopposed for second place. It fell to Haynes to inform Thurloe of the result.28 TSP v. 353, 365. Thurloe seems to have been unworried by Fisher’s success and, at a time when many other critics of the major-generals were being excluded from the new Parliament by the council of state, he magnanimously made no use of his position to prevent Fisher from sitting. It is most likely to have been Thurloe who in November 1656 introduced the bill which would have confirmed the legal status of the liberty. This got as far as ingrossment but no further.29 CJ vii. 456b, 460b-461a, 461b, 473b.

The restoration of the old franchises in 1658 brought to an end the Isle of Ely’s brief existence as a separate constituency. It once again counted as part of Cambridgeshire. Even after 1832 no attempt was made to revive the Isle as a county for parliamentary elections. It was not until 1918 that the ancient boundaries of the liberty were used to form the new county constituency of the Isle of Ely.