Berwick-upon-Tweed

Lying on the Scottish side of the River Tweed at the point where it entered the North Sea, Berwick had been a key border fortress in medieval times. It was reckoned a good natural harbour at high tide, but nevertheless a town of ‘no trade because it affords no commodities for transportation. Fishing is their best, but they wholly neglect it, except only for salmon, which is very plentiful’. Six North Country Diaries ed. J.C. Hodgson (Surt. Soc. cxviii), 19. Berwick’s exceptionally rich municipal records confirm that the catching, salting and shipping of salmon (mainly to Newcastle and London) was indeed its most lucrative trade. Coal and agricultural products, notably wheat, were also exported via Berwick, but the higher trading tariffs that prevailed on the English side of the border tended to limit commerce between the town and its Scottish hinterland in Berwickshire. Berwick RO, B1/9, Berwick Guild Bk. ff. 36v, 69v, 76v, 78, 84v, 120v, 121, 201v; B1/10, Guild Bk. ff. 10, 111; B1/11, Guild Bk. f. 181; B1/12, Guild Bk. f. 2; B9/1, Berwick Guild Letter Bk. f. 33; CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 235; 1654, pp. 103-4; HMC 9th Rep. ii. 13; R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 181; J. Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed (1888), 267; D. Brenchley, A Place by Itself: Berwick-upon-Tweed in the Eighteenth Century (Berwick-upon-Tweed, 1997), 13. On the import side, there are occasional references to cargoes of Scandinavian timber and French salt being unloaded in the harbour. Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 143v, 145v, 172v, 205, 206v; B1/12, f. 20v; Brenchley, A Place by Itself, 16-18. Although often described as a poor town, Berwick possessed ‘a good store of houses’, and both the 1642 Protestation lists and the 1666 hearth tax returns indicate that it contained well over 500 households, suggesting a population of about 2,500. E179/76/1; Six North Country Diaries ed. Hodgson, 19; Durham Protestations ed. H.M. Wood (Surt. Soc. cxxxv), 186-92; Brenchley, A Place by Itself, 5.

Until the union of the crowns in 1603, Berwick had been first and foremost a garrison town and had been run by the governor’s council. Although the town’s principal municipal body, the guild of burgesses, had considered itself to be a corporation, its role had largely been confined to the management of local trade. HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’. In 1604, however, James I granted the town a new charter of incorporation, in what was probably a deliberate effort to hasten Berwick’s shift in status from frontier stronghold to county town in Britain’s ‘middle shires’. Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 314. The guild’s pre-existing structure of a mayor, recorder, bailiffs and an indeterminate number of aldermen – or those ‘burgesses’ (freemen) who had served as mayor – was confirmed under this new charter and was subsequently augmented with the creation of an ‘alderman for the year’ (deputy-mayor) and a common council of about 15 to 24 freemen. The mayor, like the bailiffs, was elected annually and served with the recorder and aldermen as justices of the peace for the borough. The guild officers made up the ‘private guild’ – as distinct from the ‘general guild’, consisting of all the freemen – and met on a regular basis. Berwick RO, B1/10, f. 210; B1/12, f. 46; J. Fuller, Hist. of Berwick-upon-Tweed (1799), 244; Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 316, 323, 468; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’.

Although Berwick had been intermittently represented in Scottish Parliaments in the later middle ages, it was not until the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, after it had finally passed into English hands, that it had begun sending Members to Westminster. Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 472; HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’. The franchise was vested in the freemen, and admission to the freeman body was controlled by the private guild. In 1640, there were 149 freemen, and by the end of the decade this number had risen to over 180 – an increase due largely to the guild’s enthusiasm for admitting as freemen any influential figures whom it thought could perform ‘good offices’ for the town. Berwick RO, B1/9, f. 193; B1/10, ff. 93, 143, 136v. The number of resident freemen who would have voted in parliamentary elections was probably less than 125. In practice, it is likely that the private guild did most of the work in selecting and canvassing suitable candidates as MP and then presented its choices to the general guild for the freemen’s consent, which in this period was not always forthcoming. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 119v. The number of voters in the election to the 1628 Parliament was 64, and by 1689 that figure had risen to 260. HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’; Scott, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 260. The mayor and bailiffs were the returning officers. Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 61, 64v, 192, 194. Writs for parliamentary elections were sent directly to Berwick rather than to the sheriff of Northumberland. HP Commons, 1558-1603, ‘Berwick-upon-Tweed’.

Berwick had often returned a nominee of the governor during its days as a frontier garrison, and this custom was evidently revived as a result of the bishops’ wars. HP Commons 1509-1558; HP Commons 1558-1603. In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, the writ for Berwick was sent to the town early in March by its recorder, Sir Thomas Widdrington*. Alnwick, X.II.6, box 23B, bdle. v: Sir John Melton* to Hugh Potter, 6 Mar. 1640. On 11 March, the general guild elected Widdrington ‘with a general acknowledgement’, but the second place was contested between Hugh Potter* and one Mr Cooke. C219/42/1/162; Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 187v-188; Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Widdrington, 12 Mar. 1640. John Rushworth*, the town’s London solicitor, was made a freeman on election day, along with Potter and Cooke, and it is possible that he, too, was a candidate for the second place. Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 187v-188. If so, he was quickly eliminated, and the main contest developed between Potter – a steward of the county’s most powerful magnate, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland – and Cooke, who seems to have been a nominee of the governor, Robert Bertie, 1st earl of Lindsey. After ‘a free and general voting’, Potter emerged the victor, although by how great a margin is not clear. Infra, ‘Hugh Potter’; Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 187v-188. The result was probably never in much doubt, however, given that Potter had enjoyed the backing of Northumberland, Widdrington (who was the earl’s retained counsellor-at-law) and, it seems, the private guild. Alnwick, X.II.6, box 23B, bdle. v: Melton to Potter, 6 Mar. 1640; U.I.5: Potter’s accts. 1640. The guild looked to Potter to prevent encroachment by the governor and garrison upon the town’s privileges: ‘and we well hope our noble good lord the earl of Northumberland, by your means and entreaty, will afford us his noble and good favour’. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Potter, 17 Mar. 1640. The election result served to heighten tension between the civil and military authorities, with the garrison reportedly ‘enraged’ that the guild ‘did not harken to the earl of Lindsey’s request’. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Widdrington, 12 Mar. 1640. The garrison’s resentment towards the town may also have derived from a conviction that most of the inhabitants sympathised with the Covenanting Scots. Six North Country Diaries ed. Hodgson, 21. There is certainly ample evidence that a good many of the freemen were keen to maintain a godly preaching ministry in the town. Mercers’ Co. Archives, Acts of Ct. 1637-41, ff. 212v-213; Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 49, 50, 69v, 165v, 211v; CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 549-50; P.S. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships (Stanford, 1970), 66-7, 110. But it is impossible to gauge how far, if at all, this translated into support for the Covenanters.

The elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, and a collapse of the crown interest in Yorkshire, occasioned a renewal of the feud between the guild and garrison. Widdrington professed a ‘great desire to be a Parliament-man in these times which so much concern us’, but his first choice of borough was not Berwick but York, where he stood as a candidate of the lord lieutenant of Ireland and president of the council of the north, the earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†). Infra, ‘York’; Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: Widdrington to the private guild, 29 Sept. 1640. On 28 September, however, Widdrington and another of Strafford’s nominees, the vice-president of the council, Sir Edward Osborne*, were rejected by York corporation, and the next day Widdrington wrote to Berwick, expressing his desire to serve as the town’s MP. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: Widdrington to the private guild, 29 Sept. 1640. At Osborne’s request, however, he also recommended the vice-president to the private guild as a ‘very honest and worthy gentleman’. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: Widdrington to the private guild, 12 Oct. 1640. On election day at Berwick on 3 October, the town’s new governor, Sir John Conyers, attempted to exercise his traditional right to select one of the burgesses by nominating Osborne, having received instructions to this effect from Strafford via Widdrington’s brother, Henry. CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 258-9; Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Rushworth, 18 Oct. 1640. This did not go down well with the mayor and aldermen – reportedly because they ‘and all the chiefer sort of men’ in the guild wanted to re-elect Widdrington and Potter. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Rushworth, 18 Oct. 1640; same to Potter, 19 Oct. 1640. According to their version of events, Widdrington was returned for the first place without opposition, but an ‘ignorant and obstinate popular faction’ of the ‘meanest ... burgesses, who are the far greater number’, considering how they had been threatened and imprisoned by the military authorities, were anxious to appease Conyers, and ‘with an obstinate and factious opinion they carried the chief by plurality of voices ... for Osborne’. C219/43/2/90; Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: private guild to Northumberland, 17 Oct. 1640; same to Rushworth, 18 Oct. 1640; same to Potter, 19 Oct. 1640. This, at any rate, was how the private guild excused itself to the earl of Northumberland when they received his letter of recommendation for Potter two weeks later. In Conyers’s opinion, however, this was merely the guild’s way of shifting the blame for the result, and with it Northumberland’s displeasure, onto himself. He denied that he had threatened the townsmen, and claimed that ‘all or most of the principal men’ in the town had been persuaded by the recommendations of Widdrington and Strafford for Osborne. CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 258-9, 404. Certainly Widdrington was under the impression that the mayor and aldermen had elected Osborne willingly, and excused his own part in the affair by insisting that in recommending the vice-president he had never intended to exclude Potter, who would have been his first choice. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: Widdrington to private guild, 12 Oct. 1640. For his part, Northumberland blamed Conyers, and had Potter petition the committee of privileges against Osborne’s return. Alnwick, Y.V.1d, bdle. 1: Potter to private guild [Nov. 1640]. It was probably to avoid the ignominy of the committee deciding against him – the likely outcome given the House’s hatred of Strafford and his ‘creatures’ – that Osborne resigned his seat early in December 1640. Infra, ‘Sir Edward Osborne’; CJ ii. 47a. In the resulting by-election, held on 21 December, the guild returned Northumberland’s gentleman-servant Robert Scawen by ‘general and free consent’ – Potter having already secured a place at Plympton Erle, Devon. Berwick RO, B1/9, f. 201v. The indenture was drawn up the following day (22 Dec.), and like the other surviving returns for this period it gives no indication of voting numbers. C219/43/2/92.

Although both of Berwick’s MPs cooperated with the king’s party in northern England during the early years of the civil war, the town itself – or at least the private guild – made no concessions to the royalist cause. Infra, ‘Hugh Potter’, ‘Sir Thomas Widdrington’. The strengthening of the town’s defences from mid-1642 and its refusal to admit royalist forces or their recruiting agents probably arose from a desire to preserve municipal autonomy. Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 237v, 238, 239v, 243, 246, 250. The mayor and his colleagues had been manhandled by the king’s unpaid and unruly soldiery in 1641 and doubtless had no wish to repeat the experience. Harl. 477, ff. 3v-6. Nevertheless, the fact that the guild was still tendering the Protestation as late as November 1642, and that in May 1643 it sought protection for the town from a parliamentarian warship, indicates a growing gulf between the officeholders and the region’s cavaliers, who included a strong Catholic element. Berwick RO, B1/9, ff. 239, 253v, 254, 256. Local royalist commanders regarded Berwick as ‘a receptacle of all malignants’ and believed that it was ‘encouraged in its present course by the traitorous, rebellious and seditious sermons that are preached either in church or in private conventicles’. Berwick RO, B1/9, f. 247. By June 1643, the town was under royalist blockade, prompting the private guild to write to the Scottish Covenanters for assistance. Berwick RO, B1/9, f. 255v; B9/1, f. 73. However, when the English parliamentary commissioners to Scotland persuaded the guild to admit Covenanting troops in September they had to overcome what seems to have been a royalist element among the officeholders as well as a natural concern to preserve the town’s privileges. Berwick RO, B1/9, f. 261; HMC Portland, i. 129, 140. Thereafter, the majority of leading inhabitants demonstrated a firm commitment to Parliament and a renewed zeal to supply the town with a ministry acceptable to ‘God’s friends’. Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 2v, 3v, 7, 7v-8, 9, 22v, 24v, 28v, 34v, 42v, 43v, 63v, 65, 65v, 77v, 78. Even so, there was a rise in absenteeism among the private guild members during the second half of the 1640s, along with a perceptible growth of ill-feeling towards the poorly-paid Scottish garrison. Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 6, 10v, 11v, 17v, 18, 35, 38, 43, 43v, 46, 56, 71v, 85v, 99, 124, 138, 149v; B9/1, ff. 2v-3, 4v; Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 250; Perfect Occurrences no. 42 (9-16 Oct. 1646), sig. Rr3 (E.513.18). Having been seized by the cavaliers in April 1648, Berwick generally complied with the orders of the Engagers during the second civil war. NAS, GD 406/1/2316, 2355, 2356; Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 82v, 87v, 90, 91, 91v. But by September, the Scottish commander of the garrison believed that the townspeople were so ill-affected that ‘when it comes to the worst ... they will be as bad within as the enemy without’. NAS, GD 406/1/2365. Following Berwick’s surrender to the parliamentarians shortly afterwards, the mayor was removed from office by the new governor, Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, and several of the townsmen were fined or imprisoned for collaborating with the Scots. Berwick RO, B1/10, f. 91v, f. 105; CCC 811. In general, however, relations between the guild and garrison seem to have improved considerably under Hesilrige and his deputy, the acting governor Colonel George Fenwick*. Infra, ‘George Fenwick’.

Both the town’s MPs retained their seats at Pride’s Purge. However, Scawen ceased attending the Commons after December 1648, and by September 1651 the guild was canvassing the possibility of electing a replacement. Infra, ‘Robert Scawen’; Berwick RO, B1/10, f. 201; B9/1, f. 29v. Conscious of Berwick’s poverty and distance from Westminster, the guild was very particular about maintaining solicitors in London and cultivating influential patrons. Its dealings with the Rump and the council of state were handled by a powerful network of northern MPs and military men, plus assorted professional men-of-business, including Samuel Hartlib. Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 128, 136v, 137, 146v, 150, 150v, 153, 155, 156, 164v, 170v, 183v, 186v; B1/11, ff. 6, 20v, 21, 56v; B9/1, ff. 7, 7v, 8v, 10, passim; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 422. Among the Parliament-men (besides its own) and officers whom the private guild lobbied and relied upon for help and advice were Sir William Armyne, Henry Darley, George and Robert Fenwicke, Lieutenant-general Charles Fleetwood, Robert Goodwin, Thomas Hatcher, Hesilrige, Rushworth, Thomas Scot I and Sir Henry Vane II – all of whom had been made freemen of the borough. Berwick’s leaders developed particularly close ties with Colonel George Fenwick, who earned their lasting gratitude for defending the town’s privileges against the customs and excise commissioners and helping to raise money towards the construction of a new parish church. Infra, ‘George Fenwick’; Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 156v, 157v, 161v, 179v, 199v; B9/1, ff. 46v, 47v, 48, 53, 55r-v, 58, 64; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 192-3; Fuller, Berwick-upon-Tweed, 183-4. The guild also relied on Fenwick to solicit Hesilrige’s chaplain Samuel Hammond and a group of eminent godly divines that included Stephen Marshall and John Owen about procuring ‘able, pious and religious’ men for the town’s parish ministry and lectureship. Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 185v, 193v, 194; B1/11, f. 34v; B9/1, ff. 23v, 53, 66, 66v, 67, 73v-74. The guild’s enthusiasm for godly sermons and the strict enforcement of the sabbath seems to have reached its peak under the Rump. Berwick RO, B1/10, ff. 98v, 100, 100v; B1/11, ff. 16, 27v, 58v; B9/1, ff. 8v, 13v, 14, 14v, 17v-18, 23v, 27, 62v-63v. Surprisingly for so puritan a town, Berwick was apparently devoid of a Presbyterian faction in municipal politics such as emerged at Hull, Newcastle and most other east coast ports. It was with ‘general consent’ that the officeholders agreed to Fenwick’s request in April 1650 that all adult townsmen take the Engagement abjuring monarchy and Lords and that the king’s arms be replaced by those of the commonwealth. Berwick RO, B1/10, f. 157v. Similarly, in October 1652, the guild had the commonwealth’s arms put on the town mace and seal. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 26v. Whatever motivated the Rump’s committee for corporations to call in Berwick’s charter in the autumn of 1652 it was not doubt about the town’s loyalty. Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 28v, 31v; B9/1, ff. 64, 64v, 65.

Following the establishment of the protectorate late in 1653, the guild petitioned Oliver Cromwell* and the protectoral council – backed up by private approaches to Major-general John Lambert*, Colonel Charles Howard* and George Downing* – bemoaning the town’s losses to Dutch pirates (£3,000 was the alleged sum) and requesting greater penalties against those who worked the Tweed’s salmon fisheries on the sabbath. CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 235, 367; 1654, pp. 103-4; Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 51; B9/1, f. 74v. Under the Instrument of Government, the borough lost one of its parliamentary seats, and in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament on 12 July 1654 the guild unanimously returned Fenwick. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 64v. The indenture was signed by at least 50 of the freemen. C219/44/2, unfol. Despite evidence of anti-Cromwellian, possibly crypto-royalist, feeling among the freemen by the mid-1650s, Fenwick’s popularity ensured that he was returned ‘by general and unanimous consent of the whole guild assembled’ in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament on 11 August 1656. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 119v; CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 159. A request made by Major-general Charles Howard that the borough return Sir Thomas Widdrington was respectfully declined on the grounds that the guild ‘had formerly by their letter entreated Colonel Fenwick’s acceptance ... and had pitched on him to serve for us at the next Parliament’. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 119v. Fenwick’s death in March 1657, and the issuing of a new writ by the Commons, allowed Widdrington (who had been returned for York in 1656) to turn electoral patron himself and recommend his ‘cousin’, John Rushworth. Rushworth had been a diligent servant of the town since the late 1630s, and after due consideration of his ‘many good offices’ he was returned on 2 April 1657 by the ‘free, full and voluntary assent’ of the guild. Infra, ‘John Rushworth’; Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 142, 142v; CJ vii. 511a. In August, the guild ordered that the introduction of the Humble Petition and Advice be celebrated ‘with all possible solemnity’, and the following May it bestowed lavish gifts of plate on Widdrington and Rushworth for their ‘noble services’ to the town. Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 151v, 152v, 153, 172v, 181.

The succession of Protector Richard Cromwell* in September 1658 brought forth a congratulatory address from the guild, urging him to be ‘a nursing father to the Saints and a terror to evil-doers’. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 190v; B9/1, f. 85; A True Catalogue…of the Several Places and Most Eminent Persons...by Whom Richard Cromwell was Proclaimed Lord Protector (1659) 49 (E.999.12). Berwick regained its second seat in the elections to the third protectoral Parliament, and in mid-December the guild held a meeting to select the two men it wanted to represent the town. Rushworth was unanimously approved for one place as a ‘worthy and deserving person, and one that hath been ready and diligent in and about all the town’s concernments’. A former paymaster of the garrison and guild officeholder, George Payler, was ‘generally desired’ for the other place as ‘one known to most of the town, who lived amongst us and hath born the office of a bailiff’. Payler’s office as a navy commissioner may also have recommended him to the freemen. Infra, ‘George Payler’; Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 192. The two men were duly returned on 8 January 1659, but not, it seems, before some of the freemen had canvassed the idea of electing Sir Arthur Hesilrige’s son, Thomas – presumably instead of Payler. The guild effectively quashed this suggestion by arguing that the younger Hesilrige was not a freeman and therefore ineligible to stand. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 194. Mindful of the ‘good offices that his father, Sir Arthur Hesilrige, hath done for this place, as also remembering his relation to our ever honoured friend Colonel George Fenwick’, the guild made Thomas a freeman, but not until after Rushworth and Payler had been elected. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 194. The guild soon had cause to regret its rejection of Thomas Hesilrige, for with the restoration of the Rump in May 1659, his father re-emerged as a one of the most powerful figures in national politics. On 8 May, the guild ordered that a ‘petition or congratulation’ be sent to the Rump, ‘for that the speedy presenting thereof may conduce much to the town’s good’. Berwick RO, B1/11, f. 202v. The guild also wrote to Hesilrige, ‘our noble friend’, for his help at Westminster. Berwick RO, B1/11, ff. 203, 203v. The army’s dissolution of the Rump in October provoked another re-appraisal of the town’s options by the leading officeholders. On 31 October, the mayor informed the private guild of

what divisions and distractions were fallen and like to fall in these [kingdoms] by reason of the Lord [Charles] Fleetwood and Lord Lambert’s and several officers of the army in England interrupting the Parliament’s sitting in freedom at Westminster, and how that the Lord General [George] Monck* and his forces in Scotland had declared for to endeavour their restoration, and that the governor of this place had also declared for the assistance of the Parliament. Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 4.

Although the town garrison and Monck’s army in Scotland were a good deal nearer than Lambert and the English army, the guild’s decision to back the Hesilrige-Monck axis was apparently motivated by principle as well as realpolitik. It was only after the officeholders had ‘duly weighed and pondered the reasons and arguments given by both parties’ that they declared for Monck and the Rump. Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 4v; Clarke Pprs. iv. 83-4. But not all the inhabitants were happy with the guild’s choice of sides. In response to a call from the guild on 12 December for volunteers to defend Berwick, one of the townsmen replied that he ‘knew no enemy abroad at this time’ and that as a former soldier he would not take up arms again. Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 6. He was supported by seven others, including one of the bailiffs, who said ‘that he was not free to take up arms for the defence of the town in this quarrel’. Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 6.

In the elections to the 1660 Convention, the town returned Widdrington and Rushworth, who were both aligned with the Presbyterians by this stage. Infra, ‘John Rushworth’; ‘Sir Thomas Widdrington’; Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 12. The Restoration seems to have encouraged royalist sentiment in the town, or at least caused the guild to trim its sails, for when Widdrington opted to sit for York, the borough returned the town’s new governor, Colonel Edward Grey – a cavalier and episcopalian. Berwick RO, B1/12, f. 18v; HP Commons 1660-1690. The guild was certainly careful to curry favour with the new regime, sending a congratulatory address to the king in June 1660 and making a ‘free and voluntary present’ of £100 towards the royal benevolence. Berwick RO, B1/12, ff. 18v, 47. Nevertheless, by late 1661 the officeholders were in dispute with the governor, who refused to permit the town’s minister and lecturer to preach without using the Book of Common Prayer. Berwick RO, B1/12, ff. 53, 55, 60. And by mid-1662, the guild was fighting a losing battle against the bishop of Durham, who was demanding that the galleries at the east end of the town’s new parish church be pulled down to make room for a communion table and chancel. Berwick RO, B1/12, ff. 60, 61v. The rout of the puritan officeholders was completed in the autumn, when the corporation commissioners removed about ten of the aldermen and 13 common councilmen for refusing to take the oaths abjuring the ‘late usurpations’ and the Covenant. Berwick RO, B1/12, ff. 63v, 65.