York

Historically the second city of the realm, York was the fourth or fifth largest urban community in early Stuart England after London, Norwich, Bristol and possibly Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Situated at major road and river junctions, it was the seat of royal government in the north, the hub of the Northern Province and the assize town of England’s largest county. Although it was in long term, indeed terminal, decline as an international port, York was the focus of a thriving regional trade where agricultural produce was exchanged for manufactured goods and services. By 1640, the city’s economic fortunes were linked closely to its service industries and its role as a social and administrative centre. VCH York, 166-70; HP Commons 1604-29, ‘York’; D.M. Palliser, ‘A crisis in English towns? The case of York, 1460-1640’, NH xiv. 110-11, 113-17, 120-2; Wilson, ‘York’, 1-2, 6-16, 18. The Long Parliament’s abolition of the council of the north and the northern ecclesiastical commission (the northern branch of the court of high commission) in 1641 was a heavy blow to the city, and for several decades afterwards the citizens mourned the loss of that profitable ‘confluence of suitors and people’, many of them gentry, which the courts had attracted. T. Widdrington, Analecta Eboracensia ed. C. Caine, p. x; Palliser, ‘The case of York’, 120-1. Periodically during the mid-seventeenth century the corporation sought parliamentary legislation for the re-establishment in the city of a law court for the northern counties. VCH York, 198; Palliser, ‘The case of York’, 121. The civil war and its aftermath also had a damaging effect on York’s economic life. The city endured a two month siege by Parliament’s armies in the summer of 1644 which laid waste most of its suburbs and led to a major outbreak of the plague. High war-time taxation, free quartering and piracy in the North Sea all subsequently took their toll of the city’s economy, and there were few signs of recovery before the Restoration. VCH York, 168, 173, 188-9; Wilson, ‘York’, 300. The corporation’s catalogue of the city’s woes in the early 1660s was not altogether exaggerated

Trade is decayed, the river become unnavigable ... Leeds is nearer the manufactures, and Hull more commodious for the vending of them ... The body of York is so dismembered that no person cares for the being the head of it; the suburbs, which were the legs of the city, are cut off; the late court of justice ... and with it many considerable persons are swallowed up ... As for our wealth, it is reduced to a narrow scantling ... Our whole body is in weakness and distemper, our merchandize and trade, our nerves and sinews, are weakened and become very mean and inconsiderable. Widdrington, Analecta Eboracensia ed. Caine, p. x.

York was one of the oldest corporate boroughs in England. As defined by successive royal charters stretching back to the twelfth century, the corporation was dominated by 13 aldermen magistrates – the city being a county in its own right – one of whom served annually as lord mayor. The aldermen were elected for life from the ex-sheriffs or the ‘Twenty-Four’ (who usually numbered less than 24), and these two groups, with the mayor and two annually-elected sheriffs, comprised the upper house of the corporation and held regular sessions known as the ‘mayor’s court’. Assisting the upper house were a recorder, town clerk and other lesser officials. The lower house consisted of six or eight annually-elected chamberlains and a 72-strong common council, which was summoned irregularly, usually to participate in municipal elections or to advise the upper house on important business. VCH York, 137-8, 174, 178-81; Wilson, ‘York’, 19-20, 23-4, 27-30. Civic government was dominated by an oligarchy, comprised largely of merchants, that was recruited from a limited group of inter-related families with the time and money to bear the burdens of municipal office. VCH York, 181. The majority of freemen, who numbered approximately 1,500 in this period (out of an overall population by 1640 of some 11,000), had no say in municipal government or indeed in parliamentary elections, even though by charter the franchise was vested in the freemen. VCH York, 162-3; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘York’; D. Scott, ‘Politics and government in York 1640-62’, in Town and Countryside in the English Revolution ed. R.C. Richardson (Manchester, 1992), 48. By 1614 a method of election had evolved whereby the sheriffs, who acted as the returning officers, summoned a ‘competent number’ of the freemen – their names having first been approved by the lord mayor – who then joined with the corporation in electing the two MPs. In the 1628 election, the corporation appears to have relaxed these restrictions slightly, with about 300 voters attending the hustings on Ousebridge. But it was probably not until the early 1660s that the electorate came to include the entire freeman body. Throughout the period 1640-60 the corporation opposed any attempt to widen the franchise, resisting demands from the inhabitants of the Ainsty – the area of land to the south east of the city under municipal control – for voting rights in parliamentary elections. VCH York, 195; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘York’; R. Carroll, ‘Yorks. parliamentary boroughs in the seventeenth century’, NH iii. 88-9; Wilson, ‘York’, 200-1.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, the city returned the south Yorkshire knight Sir Edward Osborne – vice-president of the council of the north – and Alderman Sir Roger Jaques, neither of whom had represented York in previous Parliaments. C219/42/2/78. Having been reminded late in 1639 of the favours it had received from the council’s president, Thomas Wentworth, 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), the corporation had offered him the office of lord high steward of the city – though not without opposition from Sir William Allanson* and another of the aldermen – and had returned two of his adherents as the city’s MPs. Infra, ‘Sir Roger Jaques’; ‘Sir Edward Osborne’; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 34v, 36v, 39v, 40; J.K. Gruenfelder, ‘The electoral patronage of Sir Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, 1614-1640’, JMH xlix. 572-3. The election of Osborne in particular, was testament to Strafford’s influence in York, for it directly contravened a ruling made by the corporation in 1632 that no one should represent the city unless he was a freeman or had resided in York for over three years. York City Archives, York House Bk. 35, f. 180; Wilson, ‘York’, 200.

As was customary after a parliamentary election at York, the corporation set up a committee of aldermen, members of the Twenty-Four and common councillors to prepare instructions for its newly-elected Members. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 41. As the headquarters for military operations in the north, York felt the burdens and disappointments of the second bishops’ war particularly acutely, and this was reflected in its choice of MPs for the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640. York City Archives, YPS/1/3, ‘Hammonds diary’, unfol.; VCH York, 186-7; Wilson, ‘York’, 266-7. In a ‘troublesome and disorderly’ election on 28 September, preceded by much ‘labouring for voices’, the corporation and freemen rejected Strafford’s nominees – Osborne and the city’s recorder Sir Thomas Widdrington* – in favour of two prominent civic puritans: Aldermen Thomas Hoyle, who had represented York in the 1628 Parliament, and Allanson. This act of civic defiance was committed despite the presence in the city not only of Strafford but also of the king himself. C219/43/3/132; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 49v; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 158; HMC Var. vii. 426; HMC Rutland, i. 523. The corporation forwarded its customary list of instructions to the city’s MPs, but no provision was made to pay them until mid-1641, when the common council – which had considerable say in such matters – resolved that the money be raised by assessment rather than paid out of the common chamber (i.e. the municipal treasury). York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 49v, 58. Early in January 1641, the corporation set up a committee to consider how the council of the north, ‘which is now in agitation to be taken away, may still be continued’, and also ‘what grievances are in the city to be complained on’ at Westminster. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 51v.

The corporation’s principal grievance during the 1630s had been the perceived encroachment upon its privileges and jurisdiction by a group of Laudian clergy based in the cathedral close and backed by Archbishop John Neile. VCH York, 174, 202-3. On 8 January 1641, the corporation set up a committee ‘to consider the order of Parliament touching preaching ministers’, and it resolved in March to petition the Houses ‘against the bishops and ecclesiastical government’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 52, 53, 55. The corporation also petitioned Parliament that year concerning the establishment of a university at York, and both king and Parliament for a law court at York to replace the council of the north. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 58, 59v, 62. The abolition of the council had caused such a ‘deadness of trade’ that the corporation imposed an assessment upon the citizens ‘for procuring an Act for erecting a court of justice in the city’, and for sending some ‘fit and able men’ to Westminster to plead the city’s case. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 67v.

Until the king and his court arrived at York in March 1642, the the corporation showed considerable willingness to comply with parliamentary orders. In February, it resolved to tender the Protestation to the dean and chapter and civic parish officials ‘as by a letter sent from Mr Speaker ... is required’, and it implemented a Commons order concerning the disposal of the county magazine. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 67, 68. Many of the leading office-holders signed one or more of the three Yorkshire petitions to the king and Parliament early in 1642, protesting (among other things) at the attempted arrest of the Five Members, requesting that the votes of the papist peers be abolished and that ‘ceremonial burdens’ in religion be removed, and urging the Lords to work more closely with the Commons for the relief of Ireland’s Protestants. Eg. 2546, ff. 23-4; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 367-72; PA, Main Pprs. 15 Feb. 1642, f. 55; LJ iv. 587a. Although the corporation submitted no further petitions to Parliament after the arrival of the court, and disavowed a printed petition of late March – purportedly from the citizens – urging Charles to return to Westminster, it did express the hope that the king’s ‘great and assiduous endeavours may tend to effect a true understanding between your majesty and your Parliament’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 70, 71v; Another Message Sent to the Kings Majesty at Yorke (1642), sig. A3v (E.143.2); Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 49.

York was garrisoned for the king late in 1642, effectively cutting it from Parliament even though both the city’s MPs remained at Westminster after the outbreak of civil war. Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 49. The majority of the citizens appear to have been royalist in sympathy, and the same was probably true of those aldermen and senior office-holders who remained in the city after 1642, although they were willing to defy even the king himself in their efforts to preserve at least a semblance of municipal autonomy. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 78, 80-83, 84, 85-8, 90v, 94, 98v; YPS/1/3, ‘Hammonds diary’, unfol.; Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 655-6; Durham Univ. Lib. Mickleton and Spearman ms 9, f. 298; Fairfax Corresp. ed. Johnson, ii. 375, 393; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 49-50. A month after York surrendered to Parliament in July 1644, four prominent godly citizens, among them John Geldart*, petitioned the Commons, requesting that Hoyle be made mayor. CJ iii. 597a. The Houses, finding that ‘neither the present mayor [who had been continued in office by the king since January 1642] nor any of the aldermen were such as they could confide in’, passed an ordinance to this effect which the corporation consented to, although the office-holders insisted that Hoyle be elected as prescribed in the city’s charter. CJ iii. 612b, 617a; Add. 31116, f. 310; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 106v-108; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 50-1. On 1 January 1645, Parliament passed a further ordinance for the removal and disfranchisement of six York aldermen for being ‘very much disaffected to the service of king and Parliament’, having been informed of their ‘several delinquencies’ – which appear to have been comparatively minor – by the city’s governor, the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*), Hoyle and the Yorkshire county committee. CJ iii. 719b; LJ vii. 119b-120a; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 118. The corporation duly removed the offending aldermen and elected Geldart, Thomas Dickinson* and four other godly office-holders in their place. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 119; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 51. During their election and in the weeks that followed (and as late as April 1647), the corporation took particular care to ensure that only those who had taken the Covenant could participate in civic affairs. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 119, 120, 124, 205; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 53. Its attention to such matters reflected the apprehension among leading parliamentarians in the city of the ‘general disaffection of the inhabitants’. Bodl. Nalson IV, f. 288; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 147. In February 1645, the corporation agreed that Hoyle and Allanson each have £100 ‘towards their charge’; they were each paid a further £100 in May 1647 ‘towards their great expenses about the city’s business’; and, following Hoyle’s suicide in January 1650, the corporation abated £101 out of the rent he owed the city in full payment of his wages, with Allanson receiving a ‘proportionable allowance’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, f. 124, 205v; 37, f. 13v.

The relationship between York’s governing elite and Parliament was particularly close during the period 1645-60. The city was the principal headquarters of Parliament’s army and administration in the northern counties; and the York branch of the Northern Association committee, which was dominated by the aldermen, provided an important new line of communication between the city and Westminster – not least because Widdrington was chairman of the House standing committee of the Northern Association*. Numerous other committees for the county and the Ridings were based at York, presenting civic leaders with the opportunity to court the good will of MPs from across the region. Supra, ‘Northern Committees’; York City Archives, Y/ORD/4/2, E/63; VCH York, 190, 196; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 56, 58-9; Wilson, ‘York’, 287-95. In 1646 the corporation paid Allanson £10 ‘for entertaining of diverse Yorkshire gentlemen of the Parliament’. York City Archives, Y/FIN/1/2/24, f. 33 (for 1646). The corporation looked to Parliament for assistance in reforming and rebuilding the city’s ministry. In response to a petition from the corporation, Parliament passed an ordinance in April 1645 making available £600 out of the sequestered capitular revenues for the maintenance of four preaching ministers in the city. CJ iv. 97b, 113a; LJ vii. 332b; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, 129; VCH York, 203-4. The corporation’s concern to promote a godly ministry was not confined to York. In October 1646, it vigorously promoted a petition to Parliament from the puritan gentry and ministers of Yorkshire ‘for settling the Presbyterian government’. York CityArchives, York House Bk. 36, f. 197. And in March 1653 it set up a committee to collect signatures for a petition to Parliament for ‘support and maintenance of the ministry in order to propagate the gospel’, in what has been described as a nationwide ‘movement of growing Presbyterian assertiveness’. York CityArchives, York House Bk. 37, f. 44v; Worden, Rump Parl. 322. In fact, the corporation petitioned and lobbied the Long Parliament and its successors, as well as the Army Committee* and similar bodies at Westminster, on a wide range of matters – including the establishment of a law court at York for the northern counties; purchasing the tolls and profits of the city fairs formerly belonging to the archbishop; for financial assistance in maintaining York Minster; and for a reduction in the city’s assessment rating. York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 206, 208v, 216v, 245; 37, ff. 31v, 50; Y/FIN/1/2/24, ff. 19v, 20v (for 1649); Y/FIN/1/2/25, f. 21v (for 1654); f. 23v (for 1655); Wilson, ‘York’, 283-4.

Although the city’s merchants dominated the corporation, they looked principally to the York company of the Eastland merchants to solicit Parliament on commercial matters. With sister companies in all the major eastern ports, including London and Hull, the York Eastland merchants formed part of a powerful lobby at Westminster. Despite their long-standing rivalry, the merchants of Hull and York often undertook joint parliamentary initiatives in this period. Thus in January 1649, the York Eastland merchants resolved to write to Widdrington and Allanson ‘to desire them to join with the burgesses of Hull in procuring convoy to sail between Humber and the Sound ... this ensuing summer’. With the advice of their Hull brethren, the York company set up a committee in March 1650 to frame a petition to Parliament for confirmation of the company’s charter and to write letters to the city’s burgesses ‘to urge an expedition of the business’. The two companies also joined forces in May 1651 to petition the committee for trade. Similarly, the York and London companies worked together during the early 1650s in lobbying Parliament to continue the Navigation Act. Borthwick, York Eastland Merchants’ Ct. Bk. 1645-97, ff. 10, 11, 15, 18v, 21v, 23, 24.

Allanson, Hoyle and Widdrington survived Pride’s Purge in December 1648 and duly took their seats in the Rump. Two of the city’s aldermen, Dickinson and Geldart, were prominent members of the Rump’s Yorkshire sequestration commission; and the corporation diligently observed parliamentary orders in 1649-50 prohibiting the proclamation of Charles II and for tendering the oath of Engagement to the office-holders. Infra, ‘Thomas Dickinson’; ‘John Geldart’; York City Archives, York House Bk. 36, ff. 223, 243v, 248v; 37, f. 22v; Y/FIN/1/2/24, ff. 19v, 22 (for 1650). Hoyle’s suicide early in 1650 left the city with only one official representative in the Rump – namely, Allanson. For some reason, the corporation waited until the spring of 1654 before sending an address to Oliver Cromwell*, ‘acknowledging his government and promising obedience thereunto’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 55v; Whitelocke, Mems. iv. 92. A few weeks later, in April, it elected the Cromwellian grandee Major-general John Lambert* as lord high steward of York in consideration of his ‘favours and respects ... formerly manifested’ to the city’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 56.

In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654, the city returned Widdrington and Alderman Thomas Dickinson – both on the corporation interest. Shortly after their election, the corporation set up its customary committee to prepare instructions for the MPs ‘according to the necessity of this city’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 60. One such ‘necessity’ was still reckoned to be the establishment in York of a replacement for the council of the north, for which the corporation duly petitioned both Parliament and the protector. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, ff. 63, 64. Presented with two petitions from the city on this issue, and another from the West Riding quarter sessions, the House set up a committee on 14 December 1654 ‘to consider touching a court of justice to be erected at York for the five northern counties. CJ vii. 400b-401a. A few weeks later, Lambert’s right-hand man Captain Adam Baynes* was urged by his brother to ‘do something for York’ in Parliament: ‘the city is poor for want of trading and their former concourse of people’. Letters from Roundhead Officers to Captain Adam Baynes ed. J.Y. Akerman (Edinburgh, 1856), 110. After Parliament was dissolved – before it could pass any legislation for a court at York – Dickinson was paid £60 for his expenses as an MP; and Widdrington presumably received a similar allowance. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 71.

The same two men were returned for York again in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, but Widdrington, having also been elected for Northumberland, opted to sit for his home county. The mayor and aldermen did not take his decision entirely in good grace, informing him that ‘they could desire that he might declare himself for the city’. After Widdrington was chosen Speaker, however, they changed their tone, declaring themselves satisfied ‘that what he hath done therein [in relation to his choice of seat] is from his real affection to the city’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, ff. 88v, 90v. Having given notice in all the city’s markets of the by-election to replace Widdrington, at least 24 of the leading office-holders and ‘divers other persons of the said city’ returned Alderman John Geldart, a firm supporter of the Cromwellian regime. C219/45, unfol. Once again, the corporation prepared instructions for the city’s MPs and its several men-of-business at Westminster, who included Aldermen Christopher Topham*. Heading its agenda was legislation to improve the navigation of the Ouse, which Geldart was instrumental in obtaining in the summer of 1657. Infra, ‘John Geldart’; York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, ff. 91, 96v, 101v.

The corporation summoned the common council late in December 1658 ‘to advise upon the election of burgesses’ for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, and being informed of the ‘great charge which of late has been paid out of the common chamber for the pay of our former burgesses, which charge the common chamber is not able longer to bear’, the upper house agreed that ‘henceforth no money shall hereafter be paid out of the common chamber to any burgess whatsoever’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 120. Despite growing opposition to the Cromwellian regime among the freemen, the corporation interest prevailed, and Dickinson was returned for a third time along with Alderman Topham. Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 59. In February 1659, another municipal committee was appointed to prepare instructions for the MPs and also to ‘consider what letters are fit to be writ to any other Members of Parliament’. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, ff. 122v, 124. The corporation acknowledged the authority of the restored Rump, sending a ‘petition of recognition, as it now corrected’ to Lambert and Widdrington in June for presentation to the House. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 127. But late in 1659 the aldermen’s cautious approach to central government was successfully challenged by the common councillors, who thwarted an attempt by Robert Lilburne* and his troops to seize the York magazine for Lambert and then, in mid-February 1660, pushed the upper house into endorsing a county petition for a ‘free Parliament’. Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 60; Wilson, ‘York’, 297-8.

In the elections to the Convention in the spring of 1660, the city returned Widdrington – the corporation’s candidate – and Metcalfe Robinson, the son of a prominent Yorkshire royalist. HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘York’. The corporation interest collapsed completely in the elections to the Cavalier Parliament in 1661, when the freemen rejected Widdrington and returned Robinson and another Cavalier gentleman. Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 61-2. In September 1662, the corporation commissioners removed Dickinson and four other godly aldermen and most of the common councillors. York City Archives, York House Bk. 37, f. 177; Scott, ‘Politics and government’, 63.