Despite its convenient location in the middle of Staffordshire and its status as a county town, Stafford was in decline for much of the seventeenth century. Unlike Lichfield, 15 miles to the south (and described in 1612 as ‘more large and of far greater fame’), Stafford did not lie on a major road and was too distant from the burgeoning Birmingham manufacturing zone to profit from the increased demand for foodstuffs. J. Speed, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (1612), 69; VCH Staffs. vi. 215; K.R. Adey, ‘Seventeenth-century Stafford’, MH ii. 166. Its population in 1640 stood at a modest 1,700 or so, and that number fell as a result of plague outbreaks during the 1640s. CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 452, 520; Adey, ‘Seventeenth-century Stafford’, 154, 156-7. According to the 1666 hearth tax returns, Stafford contained 339 households, which would suggest a population of approximately 1,500 – which was a thousand fewer than lived in Lichfield. ‘The 1666 hearth tax’ (Collns. Hist. Staffs. 1921), 44-50; Adey, ‘Seventeenth-century Stafford’, 156.
Stafford’s economy was sustained by its role as the county’s administrative centre and the business generated by its markets for agricultural produce. VCH Staffs. vi. 215; Adey, ‘Seventeenth-century Stafford’, 164. The town’s largest and wealthiest occupational groups were retailers, notably mercers and alehouse-keepers; there were relatively few manufacturers. Adey, ‘Seventeenth-century Stafford’, 164; ‘Stafford’, HP Commons 1604-1629. By its 1614 royal charter, the town was re-incorporated under the government of a mayor, ten aldermen and ten capital burgesses. The mayor was elected annually from among the aldermen, who held office for life and were chosen by the corporation from the freemen body. Stafford had first sent Members to Parliament in 1295, and by the seventeenth century the franchise was vested in the freemen, who numbered at least 141 by 1645. The returning officer was the mayor. VCH Staffs. vi. 224, 237.
Stafford’s electoral affairs during the 1620s had been dominated by the corporation and by the town’s high steward (and Staffordshire’s lord lieutenant), the future parliamentarian general Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, whose residence at Chartley lay about nine miles from the borough. VCH Staffs. vi. 237. Essex continued to court the corporation during the 1630s and early 1640s, and the office-holders returned the compliment. Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, ff. 248v, 249, 255, 267, 275. However, it is unclear whether he exercised his influence in the Stafford elections to the Short Parliament, which saw the return on 23 March 1640 of Ralph Sneyde and Richard Weston. Sneyde probably owed his election to his father, who had figured prominently in Staffordshire’s affairs for several decades. There is certainly no indication that the Sneyds enjoyed a strong proprietorial interest in the borough, for their main estate lay at Keele, some 20 miles to the north of Stafford. Sneyde’s father was also one of Essex’s deputy lieutenants, and it is possible that the earl employed his interest at Stafford on the son’s behalf. Infra, ‘Ralph Sneyde’. On the other hand, it seems likely that Essex had more immediate claimants to his patronage than the son of one of his deputy lieutenants.
Weston’s election presents no such mystery. His family had settled at Rugeley, about seven miles east of Stafford, and he was appointed the town’s recorder at some point early in 1640, when the corporation sent him and his father Sir Simon Weston†, one of the barons of the exchequer, a present of veal and mutton. Infra, ‘Richard Weston’; Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, ff. 248v, 249. Weston probably owed his election to a combination of his family’s proprietorial interest in the Stafford area, his father’s standing at Whitehall, and the backing of the corporation. The election indenture has survived, but reveals nothing of note about the nature of the franchise or the number of voters. C219/42/2/13. Sneyde and Weston were returned for Stafford a second time in the elections to the Long Parliament on 9 October 1640. Again, the indenture is uninformative. C219/43/2/185. The corporation entertained its MPs with wine and ‘burnt sack’ following their election and when they visited Stafford during the early 1640s, but this was the only remuneration they received from the town for their services. Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, ff. 249, 254v, 255.
Both of Stafford’s MPs sided with the king at the outbreak of civil war – Sneyde receiving his commission of horse at the hands of the king himself. Infra, ‘Ralph Sneyde’. The town enjoyed the dubious distinction of playing host to Charles and his court in September 1642 and was required to fork out £16 to various royal servants and felt obliged to bestow a gift of £50 in gold on Prince Charles – a sum that represented over half the town’s annual income. Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, f. 260v; ‘Stafford’, HP Commons 1604-1629. Stafford was garrisoned for the king by Sir Francis Wortley in November 1642, when an entry in the corporation accounts suggests that the town authorities employed large quantities of beer either to celebrate his coming or placate potential opponents. Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, f. 267; R. Hutton, The Royalist War Effort (1982), 39-40.
Stafford, from the royalists’ perspective, was ‘the key of Yorkshire unto Oxford’. HMC Hastings, ii. 91. But though they fortified it, raised troops using money lent them by the inhabitants and resisted two parliamentarian assaults in February 1643, they proved no match for Sir William Brereton*, who captured the town in May 1643. HMC Hastings, ii. 91; VCH Staffs. vi. 187; Hutton, Royalist War Effort, 40-1, 44-7. As the seat of the county committee for the rest of the war, Stafford lay under what amounted to martial law. Relations between the corporation and the committee seem to have been fairly cordial; but the political affections of the townspeople generally are impossible to gauge with any accuracy. Staffs. Co. Cttee. lv-lvii. Brereton implied in one of his letters that the ‘well-affected’ element in Stafford was an anxious minority that looked for security to the town’s parliamentarian garrison. Yet the town’s 200-strong volunteer foot company, which Brereton regarded as a highly reliable force, represented a sizeable proportion of Stafford’s adult male population. Brereton Letter Bks. i. 150-1.
With both of Stafford’s MPs having deserted Parliament, the corporation apparently relied on Brereton to advance the town’s interests at Westminster for much of the civil war. Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, ff. 273v, 274v. On 25 September 1645, the Commons ordered that a writ be issued for holding elections at Stafford to replace Sneyde and Weston, who had both been disabled from sitting; and on 16 October, the writ was received by Brereton, who delivered it to the county sheriff in Stafford on 23 October. CJ iv. 286a; Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 121. When news of the Commons’ 25 September order had reached Stafford, Brereton and the town’s new governor Captain Henry Stone had met with the mayor and many of the freemen and had intimated their support for the candidacy of Brereton’s brother-in-law Sir Richard Skeffington* and a leading local parliamentarian and member of the Staffordshire county committee, John Swynfen*. Add. 28716, ff. 18v-19v, 22v-23v. It had been arranged at this meeting that ‘conductors’ be appointed for each ward to canvas support for Skeffington and Swynfen. The names of other gentlemen had been put forward as prospective candidates, but only one of these, the Staffordshire parliamentarian officer and committee member Colonel Edward Leigh*, would emerge as a serious contender. Before election day, the earl of Essex (who by this stage was de facto leader of the Westminster Presbyterian faction) wrote several letters to the borough, where (in Brereton’s words) ‘his lordship hath usually had the nomination of one [Member]’, recommending his nephew Sir Charles Shirley. Add. 28716, f. 27v; Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 217-18. Shirley’s interest among the freemen was referred to as ‘the earl of Essex’s party’. Add. 28716, f. 19. The stage was thus set for an electoral contest that would pit two prominent members of the pro-army interest in the region – Skeffington and Swynfen – against two leading Presbyterians, Leigh and Shirley.
The Stafford ‘recruiter’ election was held in the guildhall on 25 October 1645, and although Brereton himself was not present there was no shortage of officers, including Captain Stone, eager to oversee or interfere in what by rights was a purely municipal matter. Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 216. The supporters of Leigh and Shirley were led by the county sheriff and parliamentarian officer Colonel Simon Rugeley, who headed the anti-Brereton interest on the Staffordshire committee. The principal electoral manager for Skeffington’s and Swynfen’s supporters was one of Brereton’s allies on the committee, Captain William Foxall. Foxall was a freeman and seems to have enjoyed the backing of the mayor, who was the returning officer. He could also rely on the soldiers of his company, who were part of the town garrison and were present in the guildhall, although unarmed (Foxall and Stone both wore their swords, however). Some of Foxall’s men were freemen, but many were not. The contest between the two parties went to a ‘shout’, and when that proved inconclusive (at least as far the mayor was concerned) they were each sent to opposite sides of the guildhall and made a further shout – and still there was uncertainty. The Leigh-Shirley group thought that they were the larger party and demanded that their candidates be returned. Foxall, however, insisted on a poll, and after further disputes, it was agreed that the matter should be decided by two polls rather than one. The first poll was between Swynfen and Shirley, and when it appeared to go Swynfen’s way, Foxall and Stone demanded that the result be announced immediately. However, Colonel Rugeley objected to this proposal, arguing that if it became known that Shirley had been defeated it might discourage Leigh’s supporters. Rugeley may also have feared that Shirley would stand in the second poll and perhaps end up splitting the ‘Presbyterian’ vote. At this point, Rugeley intervened to decisive effect, threatening to complain to Parliament unless both polls be completed before any results were revealed. Consequently, it was not until the poll between Skeffington and Leigh had finished that it was announced that Swynfen had beaten Shirley by 73 votes to 68 and that Leigh had prevailed over Skeffington. Add. 28716, ff. 3-30. In the case of the second poll, it seems that Shirley’s interest had transferred its support to Leigh, ‘who by that means carried it from Sir Richard Skeffington by one voice’. Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 218. The mayor duly returned Swynfen and Leigh. The indenture has survived, but is too damaged to yield any useful information. C219/43/2/187.
The Stafford recruiter election represented a mixed blessing in Brereton’s view – as he confided to the Independent grandees Edmund Prideaux I* and John Lisle*. Swynfen he thought a ‘very choice, able man, who will be very serviceable to the kingdom’. Leigh, however, would require careful handling once at Westminster
in regard he hath been all along mispossessed of a rotten faction and prejudiced against those faithful men that with much struggling have been a means to preserve the Parliament’s interest in that county [Staffordshire], and in regard he comes into power by those that are not best affected and may possibly be engaged in opposition to Mr Swynfen by those who may conceive displeasure at his carrying it [in the first poll] against Sir Charles Shirley ... I shall use my endeavour the more to gain Colonel Leigh to a right understanding, in regard I take him to be a religious gentleman; and, if he prosecute right courses, he will have a very respective assistant of [sic] his fellow burgess [Swynfen]. Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 216.
Brereton thought that there might be grounds to question the election, ‘which had it been free and fairly carried, there had been brought in a most precious, excellent man [Skeffington]’. But in the end, he seems to have decided that the result could have been worse and took the matter no further.
Shirley’s supporters were less easily assuaged and petitioned the committee of privileges against Swynfen’s return. Their main charge was that Swynfen’s party had pressured the voters ‘by the influence of many gentlemen and the soldiery’ and by ‘threats, menaces and rewards’. They produced witnesses to testify that some of the freemen had switched their votes from Shirley to Swynfen because they felt intimidated by Foxall and Stone; that Swynfen’s party had treated the freemen with beer and tobacco; and that some of the freemen, having left the guildhall after the final shout on the assumption that Shirley and Leigh would be elected, had been refused re-admission by Foxall’s men when they had discovered that the election was still in progress. The committee of privileges was not convinced, however, and on 24 April 1646 it resolved that Swynfen was duly elected. Add. 28716, ff. 3v-5, 6v, 7v, 10v, 12v-13, 15, 28v-29. In the event, Swynfen proved a much more prominent champion of the Presbyterian cause at Westminster than Leigh did, which probably explains why the committee (or Swynfen’s allies on it) withheld its report on the Stafford election until 26 July 1647, the day of the Presbyterian ‘riots’ at Westminster. It is significant that the committee’s resolution was reported to the House by its chairman, the Presbyterian grandee Sir Robert Harley, and that Swynfen was declared duly elected ‘notwithstanding anything proved upon the petition’. CJ v. 258a.
Both Swynfen and Leigh were excluded at Pride’s Purge in December 1648, leaving Stafford without formal representation in the Rump. The town retained one of its seats under the Instrument of Government of 1653, and in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament on 12 July 1654 it returned the judge who had presided at Charles I’s trial, John Bradshawe. Although a Cheshire man by birth, Bradshawe had close connections with Staffordshire and with Stafford. The corporation had retained him as its legal counsel in 1639-40, and the following year he had been appointed steward of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where (in the words of his patron Brereton) he was ‘esteemed amongst all the honest and sufficient men in the town’. Infra, ‘John Bradshawe’; Staffs. RO, D1323/E/1, f. 243; Brereton Letter Bks. ii. 216. But what was likely to have impressed Stafford corporation in 1654 were Bradshawe’s connections at Whitehall, even though his interest at the centre of power had been waning since 1652. The election indenture states that Bradshawe had been chosen by both the ‘burgesses’ (freemen) and the inhabitants of the town. Among the half a dozen or so signatories to the indenture was Foxall. C219/44/2/15. Bradshawe had also been returned for his native Cheshire, and it very likely that he opted to sit for that county and to waive his election at Stafford – although there is no record to this effect in the Commons Journal.
In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament, Stafford returned the wealthy London merchant and principal money-lender to the Cromwell family, Martin Noell, on 19 August 1656. Noell had been born in Stafford, and at some point during the 1650s he founded ‘a fair hospital’ and almshouses in the town – which doubtless did him no harm with the voters. Infra, ‘Martin Noell’. As with Bradshawe, however, he probably owed his seat primarily to his intimacy with the grandees at Whitehall and the favour this earned him with the corporation. Once again, the election indenture states that the inhabitants as well as the freemen had ‘made choice and election’ of their MP. C219/45/1, unfol.
Stafford regained its two seats in the elections to Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament of 1659, and on 3 January the town returned Noell and William Jessop. Lancs. RO, DDHU 46/4, 22. Like Noell, Jessop was a native of Stafford but had made his career in London. It seems very likely that he was elected on the corporation interest and that, as with Noell, it was not so much his local connections that recommended him to the office-holders as his influence in central government – in his particular case, as clerk of the Cromwellian council and treasurer of the protector’s privy purse. Infra, ‘William Jessop’. According to his correspondents, he was returned notwithstanding the opposition of ‘four lords and two knights and several other gentlemen’ and of ‘deputy sheriffs and bailiffs, of Anabaptists and Quakers, of cavaliers and papists’. Lancs. RO, DDHU 46/4, 22. Presumably, these various disparate groups were united in their dislike of Jessop’s close identification with the Cromwellian court. The freemen themselves, however, apparently returned Noell and Jessop ‘freely ... without any exception in our choice, though it was hardly fought out to the end, but all parties are satisfied your election was so free, and all or most of our justices and honest men in our country are not a little glad of your election for us’. Lancs. RO, DDHU 46/4.
Stafford was represented in the 1660 Convention by Swynfen and the former Cromwellian grandee Sir Charles Wolseley*, and it was not until the elections to the Cavalier Parliament the following year that the voters returned men of clearly royalist sympathies. HP Commons 1660-1690.
