‘Well situated naturally for strength’, the town and county of Poole played an important role as Parliament’s main stronghold in eastern Dorset during the first civil war.Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 281. The strategic importance Poole depended on its site, on a low-lying alluvial peninsula, surrounded by tidal creeks and marshes, extending into the natural haven of Poole Harbour. The physical separation of the town was matched by its political independence. Although small in size (containing perhaps 1,400 souls at the end of the sixteenth century), under a statute of 1568 Poole was granted a charter to be a ‘town and county’, with an administrative identity distinct from the rest of Dorset.Historic Towns in Dorset, 82; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 20. Thereafter, Poole’s corporation was governed by a mayor, aldermen, and a council of assistants and ‘made burgesses’ (elected capital burgesses), with non-resident burgesses eligible to vote only in parliamentary elections.J. Sydenham, History of the Town and County of Poole (1839), 193-5. During the mid-seventeenth century the borough was run by a small group of merchant families, including those of Durell, Hiley, Harbin, Skutt and Williams, who circulated mayoral and other offices among themselves.Hutchins, Dorset, i. 34. There was a degree of seigneurial influence from the Ashleys of Wimborne St Giles, who had helped to secure county status for Poole in the previous century, and the current head of the family, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*, had considerable influence in the borough. There was also some involvement in the borough from other local families, including the Constantines of Merly and the Hanhams of Wimborne Minster.
The economic wealth of the Poole rested on its position as an entrepôt, especially for the Newfoundland fish trade. This meant that the town’s merchants, like those of Weymouth, were vulnerable to Charles I’s foreign and naval policies. The disastrous Ile de Ré campaign in 1627-8 had stripped the south coast of its merchant marine, and the economic slump that went with war with France and Spain left Poole’s home fleet cut in half.CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 146; 1628-9, p. 605. The activities of Sallee and Algierian pirates in the 1630s were also a cause for concern, and pleas from Poole for ‘nimble ships’ were ignored at the same time as Ship Money dues increased.CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 549; 1637-8, p. 605. Merchants such as George Skutt senior found that by 1638 their Newfoundland imports had dropped to a quarter of their 1621 levels.E190/873/3, ff. 9, 10v, 17v, 18; E190/877/3, ff. 8-9. Poole was also adversely affected by other Caroline innovations. In 1636 the merchants of the town complained about a charter to be granted to Spaniards in London, to the prejudice of their own trade; and in 1638 they experienced the abuse of monopolies at first hand, when the notorious licensee, Sir Nicholas Crisp†, was made farmer of the imposts in Poole and the southern ports.CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 534; 1638-9, p. 180. Tensions over another monopoly, which impinged on Poole’s trade in pipe-clay, came to the fore in 1639, when one Thomas Cornell of the town was examined by the council for speaking against the proclamation.CSP Dom. 1639, p. 513.
Poole’s dissatisfaction with the government was accordingly expressed in the two parliamentary elections of 1640.C219/42/98; C219/43/166. Of the chosen candidates, William Constantine* was the borough’s recorder, and John Pyne* had represented Poole during the 1620s, and had been a prominent opponent of Ship Money in the 1630s. Constantine and Pyne were cousins by marriage, both having married into the influential Hanham family of Wimborne Minster; and both proved staunch opponents of the crown in the first two years of the Long Parliament. The townspeople seem to have shared the views of their Members. In the summer of 1642 Poole declared for Parliament, and refused entry to the royalist marquess of Hertford, who had summoned the town to adhere to the king’s cause in August.Sydenham, History of Poole, 119. A year later, when the royalists took the rest of eastern Dorset, Poole stood out alone, despite the urgings of one of the MPs, William Constantine, who had turned his coat, and the subterfuges of Lord Carnarvon, who sought to deliver the town to the king.Bayley, Dorset, 108-11, 115-17; A True Relation of a plot to betray the Town of Poole (1643), 1-5 (E.69.11). Whether this enthusiasm for Parliament’s cause was universal within the town walls is less certain. On 13 August 1643 the county committee warned the committee at Portsmouth that ‘our town was extremely divided, by reason of fears, covetousness and false jealousies’.Bodl. Tanner 62, ff. 252-3. Yet these divisions were never a serious threat to parliamentarian dominance in the town, and in the last years of the war Poole became an important base for operations against local royalist strongholds. In August 1644, Poole played a crucial role in the capture of Wareham, and the garrison was subsequently reinforced by troops under Sir William Waller*.Bayley, Dorset, 119-21, 134, 215. In February 1646 forces from Poole, under its governor, Colonel John Bingham*, were present at the taking of Corfe Castle.Hutchins, Dorset, i. 12-13.
Poole’s welcome of the victory of Parliament in 1646 was offset by the damage caused to the town’s economy by the war years. Although Poole was never besieged, material destruction was caused by the need to fortify the town, and after the war there was a flurry of claims to the county committee for compensation for buildings and goods destroyed when the town walls were strengthened and earthworks constructed at nearby Hamworthy.Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 75, 93, 547-8. Of greater impact was the serious outbreak of plague which visited the town in 1645-6. The mayor’s accounts during ‘the sickness’ show the economic impact of the epidemic, which seems to have brought famine conditions to the town. Relief was sent from the Isle of Wight, Christchurch and Portsmouth as well as from the rest of Dorset; some parishes had special collections, and individual gifts of food were provided from landowners such as Sir Gerard Naper*. While some of this money was disbursed to pay for the attendant expenses of disease and death, most was spent on food and other necessaries for the living.Poole Borough Archives, MS 177(A18), unfol. In October 1645 Speaker Lenthall was reminded of the ‘sad condition of Poole, where the plague and famine busily contend for pre-eminence’.HMC Portland, i. 279. In these straitened times, the election of the son of an important burgess and four-times mayor, George Skutt* junior, to replace the disabled William Constantine, suggests that town was becoming more inward-looking.C219/43/166. In March 1646 William Skutt, George’s brother, was appointed governor of Poole, a post which he held until replaced by a New Model appointee, Lieutenant-colonel John Rede, in November 1647.Sydenham, History of Poole, 128; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 13. George Skutt, who was suspected of Presbyterian sympathies, was secluded from Parliament in Pride’s Purge of 6 December 1648.
During the commonwealth, Poole was out of sympathy with the regime and its military backers. In April 1649 the townsmen at Poole signed an engagement to assist the then governor, the sectarian Lieutenant-colonel Rede, but it would be misleading to see this as an indicator of the religious or political views of the townsmen.Bayley, Dorset, 341-2. The burgesses, at least, were strident in their opposition to radical influences emanating from the town’s garrison. In March 1651 the mayor and burgesses objected to the behaviour of Rede, who had made the town ‘a place of refuge to exorbitant Levellers and those grand enemies to just liberty, civility and godliness’.Bayley, Dorset, 344. Articles presented against Rede at the same time claimed that he ‘promoted the designs of the Levellers against the state’, favoured ‘the Ranters in opposition to the ministry’, and ‘cashiered out of the service of the garrison such as were known to walk with the Saints ... because they refused to join with him in his way of dipping [adult baptism]’. The council of state agreed to remove Rede and replace him with George Skutt junior, but when Skutt tried to take over Rede refused to submit without direct orders, and the matter was referred to Major-general John Disbrowe*, who appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Hunkins as the new governor.Bayley, Dorset, 344-8; H. Reece, The Army in Cromwellian England (Oxford, 2013), 129-32; Clarke Pprs. v. 39-42.
Poole’s opposition to Rede was principally religious in nature, and the attachment of the townsmen to Presbyterian forms can also be seen in the case of John Haddesley. In 1650 Haddesley’s refusal to take the Engagement in support of the new commonwealth led to his dismissal as the minister of the garrison.CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 442-3; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 55. But Haddesley also served as the assistant curate of the town church, and the corporation was reluctant to lose him. The burgesses, who were feoffees of Poole rectory, tried and failed to grant the living to Haddesley.Hutchins, Dorset, i. 51. Although Haddesley was imprisoned in 1653, in March 1654 the corporation tried again, taking legal advice concerning ‘the settling of Mr Haddesley amongst us’; and by the beginning of 1655 he was at last installed as resident minister in the town.Poole Borough Archives, MS 29(7), unfol. This commitment to Haddesley continued later in the decade: in 1657 Edward Butler* was lobbying at Westminster for the payment of his salary arrears.Poole Borough Archives, MS L5. It seems likely that Haddesley was a client of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, as in 1662 he became curate of Rockbourne in Hampshire, where Ashley Cooper had considerable influence.Calamy Revised, 240.
The religious question may have exacerbated tensions between the corporation and the interregnum regimes over trade. Under the commonwealth the first Dutch War seriously disrupted Dorset’s maritime trade, and in 1652 Parliament’s committee for trade advised the town that, as the government refused to strengthen convoys, the Newfoundland trade should be discontinued altogether.CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 277; 1652-3, p. 27. Despite this blow, the impressment of sailors for the navy continued, and the evasion rate increased.CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 28, 53, 547; 1655, p. 478; 1655-6, p. 446. In January 1657 Poole ship-owners begged the protectoral council to relax impressment, as it was stripping the Newfoundland fleet of its crews.CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 256. Opposition to the press-gang raised suspicions in Westminster about Poole’s loyalty. Rumours of the town’s disaffection had been rife since the beginning of the decade. In April 1651 the informer, Thomas Coke, warned the council of state of ‘some design upon the garrison of Poole’.HMC Portland, i. 577. In September 1653 the council ordered an investigation of another plot to seize Poole for the king, and this led to the examination of Major William Skutt, the former governor of the garrison.CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 140, 157, 159. A number of suspects from town were still being held in Dorchester in the following May.CSP Dom. 1654, p. 162. Under the protectorate, Poole remained obdurate. William Constantine, the disgraced former MP for the borough, had been brought back into favour by the mid-1650s, and became one of the borough’s legal counsels.Poole Borough Archives, MS 29(7), unfol. George Skutt, the recruiter MP secluded in 1648, and his disgraced brother, William, remained prominent in borough politics in the later 1650s.Bayley, Dorset, 343-4. Even the town’s political patron, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had briefly served on the protectoral council, had by the end of 1654 distanced himself from the Cromwellian regime. After the restoration of the Rump, Poole was still considered a centre of sedition. Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in the summer of 1659 again raised fears about Poole’s reliability, and George Skutt was instructed to arm all well-affected inhabitants.CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 41, 43.
Tensions with the government over religion, trade and politics formed the backdrop for Poole’s parliamentary elections during the 1650s. Under the terms of the Instrument of Government, Poole only returned one MP in the Parliaments of 1654 and 1656.CJ vii. 265b. In the 1654 election the corporation sent a messenger to Ashley Cooper ‘desiring him to be a burgess of Parliament for Poole’, and wine was accounted for which had been ‘spent at the departure of Baronet Cooper when he came to be excused from being a burgess for this town’.Poole Borough Archives, MS 29(7), unfol. Ashley Cooper, who had decided to sit for Wiltshire instead, was replaced as MP for Poole by his brother, George Cooper*. There is evidence that the MP chosen for 1656, Edward Butler, was also Ashley Cooper’s ally, as he later defended the baronet in Parliament.Burton’s Diary, i. 204.
In the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in January 1659 the borough was again allowed two seats, and Ashley Cooper wrote to Poole offering his own candidacy, his messenger being entertained lavishly when ‘he came to present Sir Anthony Cooper’s desires to serve the town in Parliament’.Poole Borough Archive, MS 29(7), pp. 40, 42. On 3 January the town elected Ashley Cooper and the town’s recorder, Samuel Bond*, son of the recently deceased Denis Bond* of Lutton. When Ashley Cooper again chose to sit for Wiltshire, a second indenture, electing his ally, the crypto-royalist, John Fitzjames*, as well as Bond, was signed on 24 January. This second election was declared void by the House on 22 March, thanks to the intervention of Sir Walter Erle*, and the result of the 3 January election was confirmed. Ashley Cooper did not inform the House of his decision to sit for Wiltshire until 30 March, whereupon it ordered that a writ be issued for a new election at Poole, although there is no evidence that this was acted upon before Parliament was dissolved in April.C219/46, unfol.; CJ vii. 595b, 616b, 622a; Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, ff. 72v-73.
Poole’s fortunes at the Restoration were mixed. The old royalist, William Constantine, was reinstated as recorder, but the Presbyterian nature of the town continued to cause problems.Hutchins, Dorset, i. 35. In 1662 the commission for regulating boroughs, which enforced the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and an oath against the Covenant, removed a number of important burgesses from Poole, including John Pyne, George Skutt, Elias Bond*, Edward Butler and the minister, John Trottle.Sydenham, History of Poole, 197-8. This effectively destroyed Presbyterian dominance within the town, and the new corporation, dominated by Ashley Cooper (now reconciled to the king and created Lord Ashley), was to prove much more conformable to the wishes of the new regime.
