Norfolk

The reaction of the Dutch traveller William Schellinks to the landscape of Norfolk was laconic; visiting the county in 1662, he thought it ‘a large, flat region, which sustains a lot of sheep and rabbits’. William Schellinks Jnl. 154. All those sheep were the key to the local economy. Although the county had substantial areas of arable farming, the wool produced from the sheep was what sustained its major manufacturing industries, the weaving of worsted cloth and the new draperies. This was what had helped make Norwich the second city of the kingdom. That cloth was then exported to the continent via King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth, which consequently continued to flourish as two of the major ports on the east coast. The resulting wealth supported a large landowning class, at the summit of which was the Howard family, formerly the dukes of Norfolk and now earls of Arundel.

Nine different men had represented Norfolk as knights of the shire in the five Parliaments of the 1620s. By 1640 only one of them, Sir Hamon L’Estrange†, was still alive. The three men who stood in the Short Parliament election represented the next generation. Of them, only Sir Edmund Moundeford* had any prior parliamentary experience. That may have given him a slight advantage and his path to the senior seat seems to have been relatively smooth. As an investor in the Providence Island Company, he had strong links with the circle around John Pym* and Oliver St John*, who were already recognised as some of the king’s leading critics. A speech Moundeford would later give in this Parliament suggests that he also disapproved of the recent religious policies implemented by the local bishop, Matthew Wren. Aston’s Diary, 89.

Sir Thomas Wodehouse*, one of Moundefield’s friends and neighbours, had been equally disturbed by Wren’s activities. Presumably because he was confident that he could get a seat for himself at Thetford, Wodehouse began to promote his own candidate for the other seat, probably envisaging that this man would partner Moundeford. The man he chose was one of his relatives, John Potts*. Having previously raised the idea with Potts’s stepson, John Spelman*, Wodehouse wrote to Potts on 13 March 1640 to inform him that he was already canvassing support on his behalf and asking him to agree to stand. That letter set out Wodehouse’s thinking.

In these bad times all good men ought to seek such means as might enable them to enterprise good matters; and you Sir are the man, by serious observation, accounted one of those few we now can find to settle our hopes upon for this employment. Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 176; W. Vaughan-Lewis and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court (Lavenham, 2009), 227.

The surviving draft of Potts’s reply suggests that he wrote back with conventional protests about his lack of qualifications for such a role and his resulting reluctance to stand. He fully expected to encounter the ‘strongest opposition which cunning, scorn and anger can invent to disgrace myself or defeat freedom’. However, by declaring (equally conventionally) that he would leave all this in God’s hands, he left it open to Wodehouse to continue promoting his candidature. Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 178; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 227-8.

Even without receiving Potts’s reply, Wodehouse spent the third week of March in Norwich campaigning on his behalf. He too expected that the election would be hard-fought. When he next wrote to Potts on 23 March, he told him that:

It is likely there will be the greatest noise and confluence of men that ever have been heard or seen on Norwich Hill, for never do I think was there such a working and counterworkings to purchase vulgar blasters of acclamation.

But he remained optimistic:

I have not been negligent in preparing minds and mouths about these parts imparted by your letter, yet I find that some people ever ravished a way by strenuous importunities, so as you must expect a rival of high stomach as well as stature, and yet I cannot fall in my belief, but do assure myself (by God’s good favour) we shall obtain a propitious wind to bring you to our wished port of Parliament. Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 189; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 228-9.

Wodehouse promised to dine with Potts at his house at Mannington on 28 March so that they could discuss tactics.

The identity of that rival was probably already clear. Wodehouse mentioned that he had spoken to William Heveningham* at the recent assizes. Heveningham had been coy about his own voting intentions but had said that he had been approached by ‘Sir John’, presumably Sir John Holland*, who was to be the third candidate in the contest. Bodl. Tanner 67, f. 189; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 229. Holland represented the Howard interest. The Hollands had served that family over several generations and Sir John was a loyal client of their current head, the 21st earl of Arundel. Whether the earl formally nominated Holland is not clear, but doubtless Holland was viewed by all concerned as Arundel’s favoured candidate. That was not necessarily a disadvantage, but what did count against him was that he had a Catholic wife. Somewhat unfairly, there was the whiff of the court and of popery about him and his opponents were not at all slow in using this against him. However, not everyone in the county wanted uncompromising critics of royal policy representing them. Having won one of the two seats at the election at Norwich Castle, Holland used his acceptance speech to criticise those who had spread the recent smears against him. Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 3.

There is one other hint as to what happened at the election. On 16 February 1641 the next Parliament would consider a petition relating to it. According to Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, it was ‘a petition of no great moment’ about ‘speeches spoken by one Dr Franklin against such as gave their voices with Mr Potts at Norwich for one of the knights of the shire for Norwich last Parliament.’ Procs. LP ii. 462. ‘Dr Franklin’ must have been Edward Franklin, formerly a chaplain to Viscount St Alban (Sir Francis Bacon†), now the vicar of Great Cressingham and a firm Laudian. Unfortunately, any further context is lost. The Commons took no action at that point, although Franklin was one of a number of clergymen summoned to appear in November 1642 for criticising Parliament. CJ ii. 850b; Ketton-Cremer, Norf. in Civil War, 155, 240, 245. That a Laudian clergyman should have opposed Potts is not a great surprise and one assumes that, given the choice of Moundeford, Potts or Holland, Franklin preferred Holland. He was not alone. Moundeford was able to take one of the seats, but Holland beat Potts to the other.

The second 1640 election seems, on the face of it, to have been a simplified version of the previous contest. Both the seats at Castle Rising, a constituency controlled by Arundel, were available, so Holland preferred to seek election there. That left the way open for Potts to stand again and to get elected alongside Moundeford. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 51. Given the prestige of the county seats, the election is unlikely to have been so straightforward, however. It strains credulity to believe that no one else considered standing. But such manoeuvrings, if they did take place, are unrecorded. The only known detail about the election involved what may have been just a side issue. On the day the sheriff interpreted the freehold franchise narrowly, rejecting those voters whose freehold lands lay within Norwich, presumably on the basis that the city, being a county in its own right, was not strictly a part of Norfolk. Five days later the Norwich corporation sent a civic delegation to the sheriff to protest at this decision. Norf. RO, Norwich assembly bk. 1613-42, f. 364v. This was just the sort of dispute that could make an election open to challenge. Presumably, however, the votes involved were insufficient to make a difference to the outcome. Perhaps the most revealing thing about this incident is that there had been a vote at all. If there had been just two candidates, the sheriff might simply have allowed them to be elected by acclamation.

Moundeford died in May 1643, leaving one seat unoccupied. Only in 1645, when the Commons decided to proceed with by-elections to fill the various vacant seats, was a replacement sought for Moundeford. The writ for a new Norfolk election was approved by the Commons on 3 December. CJ iv. 364b. When they met on 29 December, the Norfolk voters chose Sir John Hobart*, the second baronet. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 52. This sent a clear message to Westminster. Since the outbreak of the civil war, Hobart had consistently supported Parliament, but he had not done so uncritically. Like many other leading local parliamentarians, he resented the burdens being placed on Norfolk. The county was paying too much to support military forces that were being used to fight a war taking place elsewhere. The creation of the New Model army had seemed to make permanent what had previously been intolerable even as a temporary expedient. Hobart’s own loyalties had been questioned. In 1643 some at Westminster, probably led by Miles Corbett*, had alleged he lacked enthusiasm for the cause. Defying his serious health problems, Hobart now sought election as a way of repudiating those critics. By electing him, the Norfolk voters were signalling their support for an MP who promised to put their local interests first. His backers quite possibly included John Buxton*. In late November one Norfolk gentleman, Andrew Brereton of North Pickenham, certainly promised Buxton that he would turn up to vote with as many of his neighbours as possible. CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/91. Writing from London to Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe three days after the election, Sir John Holland suggested that, now that Hobart had been elected, ‘some mens’ hopes and others’ fears are at an end in that business’. Norf. RO, NAS 1/1/11/126.

Hobart’s poor health soon caught up with him; he died on 20 April 1647. The writ for another by-election was moved in the Commons nine days later. CJ v. 156a. However, there was some problem with that writ, which was recalled on 27 May. CJ v. 188b. No new order was made, so a replacement writ was evidently sent out on the basis of the old order at some point that autumn. The candidate who then declared himself was Sir John Palgrave*, a man in the same mould as Hobart. Although he had served as a colonel in the army, he had never been happy when troops raised in Norfolk had been used outside the county. He too was opposed to the principle of the New Model army, and almost certainly presented himself to Norfolk voters as Hobart’s direct successor. An undated letter to William Doughty* announced his intention of standing.

The affection I ever bore to the public before my private [responsibilities] commands my compliance with the solicitation of many of my noble friends to stand at the next choice for knight of the county. The fair respect I have received from you invites me to acquaint you with my intention to offer my self to the utmost in this or any other employment to serve my country. Norf. RO, AYL 190/4.

But Palgrave had enemies who hoped to block his candidature by spreading a rumour that Parliament intended to appoint him as sheriff, which would render him ineligible. Potts, who was Palgrave’s nephew by marriage, could not help him over this directly, as ill health had caused him to withdraw from Parliament, but he wrote to Sir Simonds D’Ewes on 20 October seeking his assistance. As he explained

[Palgrave’s] adversaries, either to wrong or amuse him, report that he shall be sheriff, which were an insufferable wrong to him in several respects; this device is only to defeat him of the election which cannot I suppose be otherwise taken from him. I pray Sir use all your friends to stave off this blow if the appointment of sheriff come before All Saints in the House, for that day will end the question. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 311.

The significance of the last point was that All Saints’ day (1 Nov.) had already been set as the date for the election. Whatever lobbying D’Ewes undertook seems to have worked; the new sheriff, Humfrey Rant, was not named until 17 November, so it was the existing sheriff, Thomas Berney, who had to organise the by-election. CJ v. 361a. Palgrave had meanwhile written again to Doughty on 26 October, explaining that

The dangerousness which som[e m]ake of the times is no argument at all to [m]e to recede from my former resolution to [se]rve my country, enjoying still the continuance [o]f your good affection and hopes of your company at the day. Norf. RO, AYL 190/4.

His confidence turned out to be justified. He was successfully elected as the new Norfolk MP on 1 November. C219/43, pt. 2, f. 54.

One other stray piece of information must be mentioned. Among the anecdotes collected by Sir Nicholas L’Estrange (d. 1655) of Hunstanton was a story relating to one of these elections. It involved Tobias Frere*, ‘a pretended zealot, but true ringleader and head of all factious and schismatical spirits in the country’. According to L’Estrange, Frere ‘fell most shamefully short and lost it, with many squibs and disgraces’, only for one of his supporters to declare, ‘I am sure Mr Frere stood for Christ Jesus, for none but reprobates and profane wretches went against him.’ Harl. 6395, ff. 78v-79; Anecdotes and Traditions, ed. W.J. Thoms (Cam. Soc. v), p. xxvii. The assumption has sometimes been that this refers to one of the 1640 elections. Anecdotes and Traditions, p. xxvii n. But the implied divisions over religious radicalism perhaps fit more with the by-elections later in the decade. Frere could well have stood against either Hobart in 1645 or Palgrave in 1647.

Palgrave remained wary of the army’s influence and in 1648 Potts was a strong supporter of the resumed negotiations with the king. Unsurprisingly, therefore, both men were secluded from the Commons by the purge of December 1648. That left the county with no knights of the shire throughout the Rump.

The next Norfolk MPs took their seats at Westminster in 1653 in very different circumstances. Selections for what became the Nominated Parliament were made by the army, based in part on recommendations made by congregations in the localities. Norfolk was assigned five places. The representatives of gathered churches at Norwich, Pulham, Alby, Wymondham, North Walsham, Guestwick and Tunstead responded by nominating five men. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 124-5. Their list was headed by Philip Skippon*. He was a native of the county who had distinguished himself in the 1640s as the sergeant-major-general of the parliamentarian armies. His prestige was probably the key factor, since his religious views were known to be much more conservative than those of most others who would sit in the new assembly. If he was not one of the ‘saints’, the others on the list probably were. Tobias Frere’s reputation for religious zeal has already been noted. Henry Kinge* and Roger Harper were members of the congregational churches at Norwich and Godwick respectively, while Ralph Woollmer* probably belonged to the one at Wymondham. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 148, 159.

The council of officers made several adjustments to this list. It was easy to pass over Skippon. A subtler change was the decision to replace Harper’s name with that of Robert Jermy*, Woollmer’s superior officer in the militia, and a more substantial county figure who had held a temporary military command during the invasion crisis of 1651. The other addition was William Burton*, Burton of Great Yarmouth, a former town bailiff, a key supplier to the navy and a leading member of William Bridge’s notable gathered congregation, which was not represented in the surviving letter of nomination. At about this time Bridge carried to London a letter from several of the Norfolk churches to Oliver Cromwell* expressing their hopes for further religious reforms. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 127. Bridge could easily have taken this opportunity to press for Burton’s appointment. With Harper omitted, the final list included places for men from the Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Wymondham churches, the three major congregations in the county.

Under the pre-1653 franchises, Norfolk had 12 parliamentary seats (two knights of the shire and ten borough MPs, sitting for five constituencies). The redistribution introduced by the 1653 Instrument of Government changed all that. Both Castle Rising and Thetford were completely disenfranchised, while the number of county seats was increased to ten, more than at any point in the past. A. and O.

Two years later Hezekiah Haynes* would recall that at the 1654 elections Sir John Hobart*, third baronet, nephew and heir of the recruiter MP, had ‘put in the worst against the honest intent’, that is, he had secured the return of MPs unsympathetic to the new protectoral government. TSP v. 220. Such men certainly figured prominently in the 1654 Norfolk result. Hobart himself came second in the poll, with the top place taken by Sir William Doyly*, who, although he had since been a justice of the peace and an assessment commissioner, had been suspected of being a royalist during the early stages of the civil war. Thomas Weld*, who took the third seat, may superficially have seemed a more acceptable figure. He was a professional lawyer who had helped prosecute the Norfolk rebels in 1650, although he too was closely associated with Sir John, as a feoffee of the Hobart estates. PROB11/202/65. Philip Wodehouse’s* role during the 1640s had been a bit murky and so far he had held no county offices; he might have been seen as an ally of Doyly and Hobart. The loyalty of Thomas Sotherton* was also subsequently questioned by some. But it was not all bad news for the government. Other seats were taken by Robert Wilton*, Sir Ralph Hare*, Philip Bedingfield*, Robert Wood I* and Frere, all of whom had strong records as active local officeholders since 1649. At the time of the next election it would be claimed that Wilton had been unpopular during the 1654 contest because he had taken firm action against Christopher Pooley, one of the more radical of the Norfolk Baptists. TSP v. 372.

The identities of most of the losing candidates similarly suggest a preference for those least associated with the prevailing regime. Two were genuinely national figures. Since the previous Parliament, Skippon had been appointed as a councillor of state by Cromwell, marking something of a political rehabilitation. Already elected at King’s Lynn, he polled just 586 votes, well behind the winning candidates. Charles Fleetwood*, the lord protector’s son-in-law and commander-in-chief in Ireland, performed rather better, but still fell 113 votes short of what he needed to gain a seat. He too had already been elected elsewhere (at Marlborough) and he was also successful in Oxfordshire, which held its election on the same day as Norfolk. His recommendation of Haynes, an old army friend with no local connections at all, did little good: Haynes came bottom of the poll. Two of the 1653 MPs who stood again, Jermy and Kinge, were both defeated, the former finding kinship to Hobart insufficient. Charles George Cock*, steward of the Norwich corporation, was an admiralty judge, whose vote probably suffered because he withdrew once it appeared that he had been elected unopposed in the Norwich election being held the same day. SP18/73, f. 217v. This proved to be a mistake: subsequent chicanery by the Norwich sheriffs allowed other candidates to be returned instead. Brampton Gurdon*, active in Norfolk administration, stood for Norfolk partly because his former constituency of Sudbury had been disenfranchised. ‘Mr Buller of Geyst’ was probably Edward Bulwer of Guestwick, who had been a justice of the peace since 1652 and who within weeks would be appointed as one of the Norfolk commissioners for scandalous ministers. C231/6, pp. 248-9; Norf. QSOB, 55-96; A. and O.; Vis. Norf. 1664 (Norf. Rec. Soc. iv-v), i. 41; Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 148. Sir John Palgrave had kept a low profile since being excluded in the 1648 purge, so this election was a chance to re-enter politics, but for reasons that are unclear he received the second fewest votes.

A full list of the voting figures for all the candidates survives, allowing tentative observations about the poll. R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. 2, iii. 56-63. Norfolk was a large county and its unreformed electorate had been substantial. Earlier in the century it had numbered as high as 7,000 and it would be of a comparable size after the Restoration. HP Commons 1604-1629; HP Commons 1660-1690. Changes to the franchise are likely to have meant that it was now even larger. The total number of votes cast in 1654 was 22,779. However, each participant almost certainly had more than one vote. Traditionally there had been two votes each to match the number of seats available, but different counties are known to have used different systems in these elections. There cannot have been ten votes each to match the seats available, as that would imply a very much smaller electorate of less than 2,300, and would not account for the number of votes gained by the candidate who topped the poll (Doyly). Overall, indications are that the Norfolk electorate was now over 11,000, a significant but not implausible increase. The election indenture mostly placed the names of the winning candidates according to the number of votes received, but with a few minor adjustments to reflect social status. The three baronets and knights (Hobart, Doyly and Hare) were named first on the indenture, while Wood was named before Bedingfield. C219/44, pt. 2, Nof. indenture, 12 July 1654.

In the days following the election the county treasurer for Norfolk, Thomas Garrett, informed the lord protector of ‘the dissatisfaction of the well-affected in this county’ about the recent result.

There be very few of the ten we can confide in; and if the choice be in other counties, we are like to be in a sad condition. I am loath to be bold or tedious to your highness; only this I cannot omit, that when others with myself have acquainted your highness with the condition of our country, and also of the men therein, it hath been made known to the parties here before I got home; which makes us obnoxious to the malice of our enemies. TSP ii. 503.

Garrett may have been exaggerating. Nevertheless, it seems clear that those candidates most hostile to the protectorate had done best and that more establishment figures had been deliberately rejected. That impression is reinforced by what happened next. When Parliament assembled and Cromwell demanded that all MPs take an oath against altering the existing constitutional settlement, according to Guybon Goddard*, most of the Norfolk MPs hesitated to do so, with only Frere taking it immediately. Eight others took it with a certain reluctance after discussion between themselves. Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. The tenth, Philip Wodehouse, may subsequently have taken it, but his religious views were decidedly conservative and he was probably a rather disaffected presence in the House. TSP v. 370.

The next Parliament was called for September 1656. By then Fleetwood was nominally the major-general for East Anglia but in practice it fell to Haynes as his deputy to try to organise the government interest in the elections in Norfolk. He was not optimistic. By the time the writs arrived on 15 July, Haynes was in Norwich. On 16 July he wrote to the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, of false rumours circulating that the elections would be free, and warned him that

we shall send you as bad as we dare choose, and if there be any alteration in the choice, it will be for the worse; for honest men are not yet persuaded to appear, they had so ill success in their endeavours here, by threats and frowns of those last chosen, as also in their prosecution of exceptions above against some, which proved very chargeable and fruitless. TSP v. 220.

One specific concern was that trouble might be caused by Christopher Pooley and his radical friends. With Thomas Buttevant, Pooley now led a Fifth Monarchist group based at North Walsham, which Haynes feared would resort to violence. TSP v. 220. In the event, their attempts at mischief were easily contained. On 7 August Buttevant sent some seditious books – quite probably copies of the republican tract, Englands Remembrancers – to his kinsman Thomas Weld at Wymondham, asking that they be circulated to voters. Weld immediately handed them over to the authorities. TSP v. 298; Englands Remembrancers ([1656], E.884.5).

Haynes’s priority was to secure a seat for Fleetwood. As he told Thurloe on 15 August, this was so that ‘the honest people may have someone in Parliament to address themselves to.’ He feared that the other seats would be won by less suitable men owing to the ‘potency of the adverse party’. TSP v. 311. The two candidates whose election he assured Thurloe he would work hardest to block were John Hobart* and Philip Wodehouse. This may mean that Hobart, previously MP for Norwich, now intended to stand as a knight of the shire, although, in the event, he was re-elected for his old seat. As the election day approached, Haynes toyed with the idea of putting his own name forward, but was dissuaded by William Stane* and John Sheldrake, who argued that this might damage Fleetwood’s chances. TSP v. 328. That turned out to be very wise advice.

Less is known about the preparations being made by the other side. Robert Wilton wrote to his brother-in-law John Buxton on 13 July assuring him of support for his candidature and observing that

The adverse party are and will be hard at work, plotting and contriving their game how to play it for their own advantage, having the high sheriff to assist them. Truly I wish from my heart the country would be well advised in the choice of such as will serve them with a faithful heart and not either for profit or preferment. CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/103; HMC Var. ii. 270.

An undated fragment of a bill among Buxton’s papers may indicate that he and others spent £47 14s. 8d. on wine in connection with this election. CUL, Buxton pprs. 96/5.

Most of the East Anglian elections were held on 20 August. It was an indication of the importance he attached to the Norfolk result and of his attendant pessimism that Haynes chose to be in Norwich that day. TSP v. 328. His worst fears were realised. Detailed polling figures survive because in the eighteenth century the Norfolk antiquary Antony Norris (1711-86) copied them from a document then in the possession of the naturalist Robert Marsham (1708-97). Norf. RO, MS 197, unfol.; Norf. Arch. i. 67. Of the ten MPs elected in 1654, two – Thomas Weld and Philip Bedingfield – seem not to have stood and one – Tobias Frere – had since died; his son, Tobias junior, put himself forward but came towards the bottom of the poll. The remaining seven were re-elected. Indeed, the 1656 result strongly echoed that of 1654. Sir John Hobart and Doyly swapped the two top places, while Weld’s absence allowed Wilton and Hare to move up to the third and fourth places. With Sotherton falling back into eighth place, Wodehouse moved up to fifth place. Two new candidates then took the sixth and seventh places. One was Buxton. The other was Sir Horatio Townshend*, still only in his mid-twenties and soon to become one of the major political figures in the county. However, although he was already a justice of the peace and had been an assessment commissioner, he so far had kept aloof from local administration, making him seem a more neutral figure than some of the other candidates. Fleetwood gained one of the two remaining seats, with a slightly bigger margin than in his defeat two years earlier. (He was also elected for Oxfordshire and Marlborough, but, formally or informally, looks likely to have chosen to sit for Norfolk.) Wood then scraped home in tenth place.

Just as striking as the success of the previous MPs was the reluctance of those defeated in 1654 to try again. Apart from Fleetwood, only Charles George Cock and Brampton Gurdon stood, and neither was successful. Cock was the only candidate whose vote fell in absolute terms and, as it did so sharply (from 1,040 to 609), he ended up at the bottom of the poll. Jermy may have been disinclined to stand because he had recently lost a court case in which he had sued over accusations of corruption. Although his re-election there would not be straightforward, Skippon (now the major-general for London) preferred to take his chances at King’s Lynn.

The two losing candidates who came nearest to getting elected were both former recorders of Norwich. Francis Corie† (‘Mr Carey’) had forfeited that post in 1644 because his commitment to Parliament had been questioned, and in 1654 he had only recently been dismissed from the commission of the peace. Index to Norwich City Officers, p. xxxvii; J.T. Evans, Seventeenth-Century Norwich (Oxford, 1979), 131; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Francis Corie’. The allegiance of Samuel Smith of Colkirk, in contrast, had never been in doubt. During the civil war he had been Norwich’s representative on the Eastern Association committee at Cambridge and he had remained active as a local magistrate in Norfolk. Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 87; Norf. QSOB, 21-97. That Corie polled more than Smith, albeit by just 33 votes, was further evidence that the Norfolk voters were favouring those most opposed to the current government. Another candidate damaged by his association with the government was the aforementioned Thomas Garrett. Treasurer for the decimation tax in Norfolk and already a militia captain, he was hoping to be appointed soon as the lieutenant of the troop of horse commanded by Ralph Woollmer. CSP Dom. 1658-9, pp. 239, 244; Knyvett Lttrs. 47; Norf. QSOB, 38; TSP iv. 171, v. 371. Some years later he would be one of the farmers of the excise for Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. CJ vii. 637b. He polled fewer votes than any candidate apart from Cock. ‘Mr Denny’ was probably Edward Denny of Buckenham, who had previously served as a Norfolk assessment commissioner. A. and O. Haynes reported to Thurloe that this result was ‘as bad as it could well have made, my lord deputy and Colonel Wood excepted’. TSP v. 328. In Buckinghamshire Francis Drake* forwarded details to Ralph Verney*, on the assumption that he would be interested because of ‘the strangeness of it.’ Verney MSS, F. Drake to R. Verney, 10 Sept. 1656 (M636/14).

The existence of another set of polling figures makes it possible to make some comparisons betweenthe elections of 1654 and 1656, when the total number of votes cast was 29,712, about one-third higher. Some of that could have been attributable to a higher turnout. As in 1654, that total seems too small to suggest that each voter had one vote per seat. But if they had just two votes each, the electorate would have numbered almost 15,000, a very significant increase on the size of the unreformed electorate. For a county whose total population probably already exceeded 200,000, such a figure would have been strikingly large but not entirely impossible. An alternative hypothesis is that voters were each given some other number of votes, possibly four. Whatever else, the Instrument of Government had indisputably increased the size of the county electorate in Norfolk.

Other patterns are discernible. With more votes overall being cast, all candidates who stood in both elections, with the conspicuous exception of Cock, gained votes in 1656, but not equally. Although he performed strongly, Doyly’s vote barely increased at all; hence Hobart could overtake him. The increases in the votes for Wilton, Hare and Wodehouse were proportionally almost identical. Indeed, Wilton and Hare both gained the same number of new votes (779) and the largest absolute increases. Perhaps this indicates that their supporters were voting as a block. An analysis by share of the vote reveals a broadly similar picture. Almost all the swings were tiny, bearing out the impression that most voters were voting in much the same way as previously. The biggest negative swings were against Cock and (because his actual votes were almost unchanged) Doyly. Conversely, although he gained slightly fewer votes than Wilton, Hare and Wodehouse, the biggest positive swing (albeit just 1.39 per cent) was to Fleetwood. He may well have owed this, and his election, to Haynes’s decision not to stand.

Under powers given it by the Instrument of Government, the council of state could determine which MPs were qualified to sit and exclude those deemed undesirable. In early September Ralph Woollmer sent Haynes an anonymous paper outlining allegations against Doyly and Wodehouse, as well as against four of the other men who had been elected. Doubts were cast on the actions of Doyly and Sotherton during the civil war; Hare and Townshend were said to be habitual swearers; Buxton was (rightly) said to have been inactive since the king’s execution. However, the informant suggested that Wilton was not as unpopular as he had been in 1654, apparently because Pooley had since been left in peace – ironically something Haynes did not welcome. TSP v. 371-2. Haynes evidently passed on the information. On 18 September Doyly wrote to Buxton from London conveying the bad news that, since only MPs with a certificate from the council of state were being permitted to take their seats in Parliament, they were both excluded, along with Hare, Wodehouse and Sotherton. CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/104; HMC Var. ii. 271. No action was taken against Wilton or Townshend. The next day, when the clerk of the commonwealth in chancery appeared before the Commons, he was examined first on the Norfolk election and confirmed that Hare, Doyly, Wodehouse, Buxton and Sotherton had been refused permission to sit. CJ vii. 425a. All five subsequently signed the declaration published by the excluded Members. To all the Worthy Gentlemen ([1656], E.889.8) .

Wilton died in November 1657, during the adjournment between the two sessions. The following month Fleetwood was summoned to sit in the Other House. When the new session began on 20 January 1658, the excluded Members had the option of taking their seats. Doyly is known to have considered doing so, but probably decided against it. CUL, Buxton pprs. 59/108; HMC Var. ii. 272. Given the brevity of the session, it is impossible to be sure about the others.

As elsewhere, Norfolk reverted to the old franchises for the elections to the 1659 Parliament. The election indenture, drawn up on 10 January 1659, was signed by 22 gentlemen of the county, including Lawrence Oxburgh alias Hewer* and Guybon Goddard. C219/47, Norf. indenture, 10 Jan. 1659. The choice of Townshend and Doyly confirmed the county’s lack of enthusiasm for the protectorate. Both men had been in touch with the exiled Stuart court in the past, although neither was yet an active plotter, and, over the next few months, Townshend would be viewed as something of a leader of the royal interest in the Commons. But probably this was not quite how they had presented themselves to the Norfolk electorate in January 1659. Neither Townshend nor Doyly lamented the end of the protectorate, but they viewed its replacement by army rule and the restored Rump with dismay. Even though Townshend was appointed to the council of state that May, by the summer he was actively involved in planning the royalist uprising in Norfolk.

Potts briefly resumed his place as MP for Norfolk in the Long Parliament when the secluded Members were readmitted in February 1660. It is not clear whether Palgrave did so too.