Huntingdonshire

The most important feature of the Huntingdonshire landscape was man-made – Ermine Street or the Great North Road, which bisected the county, had been one of the key routes to the north since Roman times and the passing trade of those travelling its length was a major element in the local economy. Since it had been deflected to avoid the Fens which extended into the north east of the county, its course marked a very obvious boundary in the geography of the region. The county town, Huntingdon, owed its existence to its location at the point where the Street crossed the Ouse, the river which formed the main east-west route across the county. The link provided by the Ouse into East Anglia, to Ely and King’s Lynn, or south west, to Bedford, was almost as important as the overland route south to London, and the only towns in the county, St Neots, Huntingdon, Godmanchester and St Ives, were all dotted along its banks. Its major drawback was that the Ouse was not always navigable and a major local issue in this period was the scheme promoted by Arnold Spencer to keep it open to traffic between Bedford and St Ives.1 The Navigation of the Gt. Ouse between St Ives and Bedford ed. T.S. Willan (Publications of the Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc. xxiv. 1946). Spencer’s scheme was undertaken in the same spirit as the vast project further downstream to drain the Great Level, which was transforming the landscape of the borderlands between Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire, while in the north of the county local families like the Cromwells and the Cottons were also busy reclaiming the extensive fenlands on their estates. In time this would blur the contrast which until then had existed between these waterlogged fens and the fertile arable lands to the south.2 P. Bigmore, The Beds. and Hunts. Landscape (1979), esp. 154-71. The local antiquary, Richard Astry (1632?-1714), was in no doubt as to the quality of the land within the county, describing it in glowing terms.

The hilly soil is to the ploughman grateful: the vale contiguous to the fens, best for pasture, in which to no part of England it giveth place: woods are not much wanted, the rivers serving coal, as the moors turf, for fuel.3 Lansd. 921, f. 3.

This landscape provided the basis for the wealth of a number of major families, foremost among whom were the Montagus. Two cadet branches of the line which had its principal seat at Boughton in the next county – the Montagus of Kimbolton, who were earls of Manchester from 1626, and of Hinchingbrooke, earls of Sandwich from 1661 – had managed to establish themselves as the leading landowners throughout much of the county, in part at the expense of the Cromwells. In particular, it was the sale in 1627 of Hinchingbrooke House on the outskirts of Huntingdon by Sir Oliver Cromwell† (uncle of Oliver Cromwell*) to the 1st earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) and his younger brother, Sir Sidney Montagu*, which marked the point at which they, rather than the Cromwells, became the undisputed leaders of the county community – a central fact in the political history of Huntingdonshire in the seventeenth century.

The Montagus’ principal aim in the 1640 elections was to consolidate their hold on Huntingdon and so, for the Short Parliament elections, they allowed other families to claim the two county seats. Sir Oliver Cromwell, by now a septuagenarian, probably felt that he was too old to stand again. This left the field free for Sir Thomas Cotton* (son of the late Sir Robert Cotton†) and Sir Capell Bedell*, the only other landowners of any real consequence within the county, who duly claimed these seats. In Bedell’s case, the protection from his creditors which a seat in Parliament offered may have served as the principal motive for standing.

The elections for the Long Parliament proved to be more contentious. Cotton and Bedell were probably ruled out by a desire for change. Approached in this way, the choice was almost bound to include a Montagu and/or a Cromwell. Sir Sidney Montagu had last sat in Parliament in 1614. His sudden renewal of interest in Parliament is to be explained by the loss of his court office as a master of requests following his refusal to cooperate with the king’s demand for money to help finance a new campaign against the Scots.4 HMC Rutland, i. 521; M.C. Fissel, The Bishops’ Wars (Cambridge, 1994), 127, n. 89. A seat in Parliament was one way by which he could justify this apparent disloyalty to his monarch. As for the Cromwells, Sir Oliver, now even older, stepped aside to allow his son and heir, Henry senior, to seek a place instead. It was a measure of the weakness to which the Cromwell interest had been reduced that Valentine Wauton* then emerged as a serious rival. The Wautons were not one of the great families of the county and, although Valentine was related by marriage to the Cromwells of Ramsey, his wife (a sister of Oliver Cromwell*) was one of Sir Oliver’s poorer relations. His one big advantage, however, was summed up by one of the 2nd earl of Leicester’s correspondents, who described him as ‘one that would not pay the Ship Money’.5 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 334. He and Sir Sidney both seemed to be men who had personally stood up to the king and, after a poll which, according to one report, was accompanied by fighting among those present, they secured these seats.6 Bodl. Tanner 65, ff. 164, 175.

Sir Sidney Montagu’s membership of the Long Parliament was shorter than most. His refusal to cooperate with those mobilising support for Parliament in Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire in the autumn of 1642 gave the Commons an excuse to disable him that December;7 Harl. 164, ff. 177v, 178v; CJ ii. 874a-b; Add. 18777, f. 79 as he died in September 1644 a vacancy would have arisen anyway. The succession of Edward Montagu I to his father’s peerage also created a vacancy for one of the borough seats. Long before the Commons confirmed that it would indeed move to fill vacancies created by death, disablement and promotion, some in Huntingdonshire were making plans against such an eventuality. By February 1645 the 2nd earl of Manchester’s steward, Robert Bernard*, was already engaged in discussions with Sir Sidney’s son Edward Montagu II* as to who should be elected in any future by-elections. Bernard was not optimistic about their chances of success.8 Bodl. Carte 74, f. 197. He was evidently playing a delicate double game, given that Montagu, as a colonel in the parliamentarian army, had sided with Manchester’s critics. With Sir Sidney dead, there was a real possibility that Edward, anxious to assert his authority as the new proprietor of Hinchingbrooke, might try to challenge his cousin’s electoral influence in and around Huntingdon. The combination of the local interest which had secured Sir Sidney’s election in 1640, together with the glamorous and radical reputation Montagu had acquired during his time in the army – he resigned his commission some time in the early autumn of 1645 – was likely to prove formidable.9 Infra, ‘Edward Montagu II’.

On 3 and 23 September the Commons ordered the issuing of writs for elections to fill the vacant Huntingdon and Huntingdonshire seats.10 CJ iv. 263a, 283a. When he reported to Manchester on 22 September about the preparations for these elections, Bernard took care to give the impression that he was a mere spectator. According to him, the ‘turbulency and division’ which marked these preparations was an extension of the dispute between the county standing committee, led by Abraham Burrell*, and the local excise commissioners. He thanked Manchester for his protection, for

truly it is little, in regard of the divisions in every place, especially here, and the unhappiness in general to this consuming nation. It is clamorous to meddle, and scandalous to sit still. Our senses are infatuated, we value Bristol stones [fake gems] beyond diamonds.11 Hunts. RO, M28/1/33.

He expressed relief that Manchester had no plans to attend the polls because ‘every clown thinks he can make a nobleman. And we have some enthusiasts [that] think themselves religious beyond all others’.12 Hunts. RO, M28/1/33. The success for Burrell in the borough by-election eight days later (30 Sept.) can probably be counted a victory for the Presbyterians, whereas Montagu, in securing a seat as knight of the shire – probably some time in early October – may have relied on Independent support. Neither Montagu nor Wauton were removed by the army’s purge of the Commons in December 1648, but, whereas Wauton willingly sat in the Rump and signed the king’s death warrant, Montagu made a point of playing no part in its deliberations.

This distance from the Rump which Montagu maintained throughout its existence stood in contrast to the earlier reputation for religious radicalism which he had acquired during his time as a soldier. Yet to a large degree it was only Montagu’s reluctance to endorse the Rump’s irregular constitutional position that stood in the way of his involvement in government. Once the Rump had been dissolved and a new assembly selected, Montagu willingly re-entered active politics. He was summoned to the Nominated Parliament as a Member for Huntingdonshire with Stephen Phesant*. A professional lawyer whose father had been one of the judges who had continued in office after the king’s execution, Phesant was a recent arrival in the county and can have had little to recommend him other than his godliness. In due course Montagu gained a place on the new council of state and, in that capacity, became one of that assembly’s leading figures.

Overall, Huntingdonshire neither gained nor lost out in the redistribution of parliamentary seats effected by the Instrument of Government of 1653, for the seat which was taken away from Huntingdon was added to those for the county. Given the secure control that the Montagus of Kimbolton had over the affairs of the borough, this could be considered a minor setback for them, although the considerations of equity rather than of malice probably determined this change. The most striking feature about the first Huntingdonshire election held under these new arrangements was that it signalled the re-emergence of the old Cromwell interest. How far Henry Cromwell alias Williams*, son of the candidate in the Long Parliament election, was assisted by his kinship with the new lord protector is impossible to say, especially as Henry had shown little sympathy with the protectorate; it seems much more likely that his election was instead based on his grandfather’s residual status within the county, which would explain why he was chosen for Huntingdonshire at every election until his death in 1671. The Cromwells of Ramsey may have slipped far behind the Montagus, but, for the purposes of a general election, it was enough that they were still the second family of the county.

Edward Montagu II seems to have had other ideas. On 29 June he ordered one of his servants to ride round the county informing those freeholders who were ‘well wishers unto me’ that he intended to vote for Griffith Lloyde* and Phesant.13 Bodl. Carte 223, f. 334. Like Phesant and unlike Cromwell alias Williams, Lloyde was active in his support for the protectorate. A Welshman by birth, he had served during the civil war under Charles Fleetwood*, in whose regiment he now held the rank of captain. His purchases of land at St Ives and Hemingford Grey indicated plans to settle in the county. However, Montagu, Lloyde and Phesant faced opposition from Wauton, now a confirmed opponent of the protectorate and its defenders. Wauton was also prepared to play dirty to get one of the three seats. Statements taken by Lloyde on the same day as the poll alleged that Wauton’s supporters had intimidated other voters. Thomas Melton of Huntingdon claimed that Wauton himself had declared ‘if we have it not one way, we will have it another way’ and that his men had then tried to attack him. According to Edward Hamper of Abbots Ripton, some of Wauton’s supporters had tried to ensure that only ‘Somersham men’, that is Wauton’s own tenants, voted.14 Bodl. Carte 74, f. 89. Such tactics backfired, however, and Wauton failed to gain any of the seats. Yet the result was not a complete success for Montagu, for Cromwell alias Williams succeeded in taking the second seat, pushing Phesant into third place and squeezing out Lloyde.

Although Nicholas Pedley was arguably a more conservative figure than Phesant, the Huntingdonshire result in 1656 hardly amounted to a backlash against the protectorate of the sort seen in some other parts of the country. Pedley was another ambitious lawyer without scruples about serving the incumbent regime. A marriage to Robert Bernard’s daughter, an estate inherited from his uncle and the purchase of lands which Sir Oliver Cromwell had been forced to sell gave him a secure power base within the county. Otherwise, the election of Edward Montagu and Henry Cromwell suggests that this was little more than a re-run of the result two years before.

It may be relevant that this election took place in Montagu’s absence, for he and Robert Blake* were then at sea as joint-generals of the fleet. Anticipating that a Parliament was about to be summoned, Montagu had written to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, from the fleet on 3 July asking him to get Lloyde elected for Huntingdonshire and suggesting that a seat also be found for Burrell.15 TSP v. 179. But if Thurloe received this in time, he was unable to oblige. Montagu’s indirect involvement in the capture of the Spanish treasure fleet in September 1656 further enhanced his reputation and that December he was an obvious choice for elevation to the Other House.

Montagu’s membership of the Other House avoided the problems which might otherwise have arisen when new elections were held in 1659 using the old franchises. Both Cromwell alias Williams and Pedley stood again and were able to secure to the two county seats now available. It must be remembered that, as a result of his links with Bernard, Pedley always had the reserve option of seeking the nomination of the borough. Given that Montagu had already engineered John Thurloe’s return for one of those borough seats, it may well be that Pedley, who shared the view of Montagu and Thurloe that Richard Cromwell* ought to continue as lord protector, on this occasion enjoyed the reciprocal backing of the Montagu interest for the county seat.

The Restoration, while elevating Montagu to an earldom, did little to alter the basic pattern of Huntingdonshire electoral politics – over the next generation the Montagus, the Pedleys, the Bernards and later the Cottons continued to battle for these seats. Only the Cromwells of Ramsey, or Williamses as increasingly and prudently they preferred to call themselves, quickly faded from the scene after Henry died leaving no male heir. It was this biological bad luck, not their association with the lord protector, which finally brought to an end the Cromwell presence in the county which they had once dominated.