Sandwich

The easternmost of the cinque ports, Sandwich, which incorporated Deal, Fordwich, Ramsgate and Brightlingsea, was located inland of the south Kent coast, on the banks of the River Stour and on the southern side of the Wantsum Channel which traditionally divided mainland Kent from the Isle of Thanet. D. Gardiner, Historic Haven (1954), 3. Like many ports in the region, its fortunes were threatened by encroaching sandbanks, but it fared worse than most. The harbour had decayed sufficiently by Tudor times to preclude significant mercantile activity, despite attempts at remedial action which continued into the 1630s. Nevertheless, its status as one of the three main embarkation points for the continent gave the town a degree of political importance during times of domestic trouble such as the civil wars. Gardiner, Historic Haven, 195-207. In April 1642, for example, civic authorities were ordered to search for the renegade MP Sir Edward Dering*, while the town was later the focus of considerable fears regarding the arrival of royalist plotters from abroad. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 149. Such human traffic may have helped sustain a relatively strong economy, which was sufficiently buoyant to warrant a Ship Money assessment of £250 in 1635. E. Kent RO, Sa/C5/2.

Sandwich had also attracted refugees from continental religious conflicts: since the mid-sixteenth century there had been a thriving community of Walloon Protestants. They were among the 315 non-conformists recorded in the Compton census out of a total of 1416 communicants in the town’s three parishes (St Mary, St Peter and St Clement), although the population had probably been somewhat higher before the devastating visitations of plague in 1636 and 1644. Gardiner, Historic Haven, 174-85, 219-21; Compton Census, 21. Puritanism was evident in riots against Robert Lovell, the royalist incumbent of St Peter’s at the outbreak of civil war, and from his replacement by Hope Sherrard, recently returned from a post in the puritan colony of Providence Island. More radical views were espoused by other local ministers like the controversial Richard Symonds, who held advanced views on baptism, and Robert Alderson, one of the town’s lecturers in 1642, who appears not to have been ordained when he began baptising infants the previous year. By 1644 Sandwich was playing host to sectarian conventicles. Add. 33512, f. 75; Gardiner, Historic Haven, 275-80; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 175-6; Sa/AC7, f. 427v; Al. Cant. Another of the town’s ministers, John Durant, appointed on parliamentary orders in July 1642 with the backing of both the lord high admiral, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, and a group of leading Independent ministers, later became pastor of the congregational church in Canterbury, yet he retained the support of the townsmen into the 1650s. CJ ii. 671; Calamy Revised, 173; E. Kent RO, Sa/C4; Sa/AC8, f. 87v; CSP Dom. 1682, p. 250. Some of the civic leaders may have been less radical, however, and in February 1644 local parliamentarian leaders noted that crosses and images had not yet been removed from the town’s churches, while the authorities also had to be encouraged to promote the Solemn League and Covenant, and to list those who refused to subscribe. Add. 33512, ff. 87-8. By 1659 the town may have been a nucleus for local Quakers, and the presence there of three leading Friends, Samuel Fisher, George Whithead and Richard Hubberthorn, led to a disputation with the town’s Presbyterian minister, Thomas Danson. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, ff. 94v, 99v, 129v; T. Danson, The Quakers Wisdom (1659, E.2255.4); The Quakers Folly (1659, E.2255.3); Calamy Revised, 156.

A charter borough since before the Conquest, Sandwich’s status as one of the cinque ports meant that it fell under the influence of the lord warden, who had customarily nominated at least one of the two Members in each election. The ‘insolence and disorder’ of the commonalty had led in 1603 to a decision to confine the franchise to the governing body of mayor and the common council, then reduced to 24 men, and that had enhanced the ability of the lord warden to secure the return of carpetbaggers. In 1621, however, the franchise had been restored to the whole body of the freemen, of whom 372 voted in 1640, and who may have numbered as many as 400. HP Commons 1604-1629; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 61; Boys, Sandwich, ii. 702; Gardiner, Historic Haven, 3, 224-9.

As in other cinque ports, the 1640 elections were fiercely contested, and the search for support began in good time. In December 1639 the lord warden, Theophilus Howard, 2nd earl of Suffolk, having declared his intention to nominate one Member, recommended Sir John Manwood*, the lieutenant of Dover Castle, who wrote his own letter to the borough on the 24th. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 1, 10, 11; Sa/ZB2/90; Add. 33512, f. 30. The same month Nathaniel Finch*, the town’s recorder, expressed his hopes for a place, and he was subsequently recommended by his brother John Finch†, Baron Finch, newly-made lord keeper. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 8-12. Meanwhile, December also saw a letter of recommendation from Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, the lord high admiral, on behalf of Edward Nicholas†, then clerk of the privy council, who in due course also received support from Suffolk (as his second nominee) and from the town bailiff (and Somerset Herald), John Philpot, who commended Nicholas’ efforts on the council on the town’s behalf. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 9; Add. 33512, f. 36; Boys, Sandwich, ii. 424. To both Suffolk and Northumberland the mayor and jurats replied that Nicholas was ‘a gentleman whom we love and honour and one that hath well deserved of this corporation’. Although they were ‘but few, but thirteen’, ‘having reserved ourselves free from any private engagements upon your honour’s entreaty’, they promised to ‘do our full endeavour to move and persuade the multitude of freemen here (who have voices in this election as well as we) by reasons and otherwise to fix their eyes upon him’. As they also admitted, however, many others had ‘solicited for the place’. CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 333; SP16/441, f. 276; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 9-10. At least three local men declared their intention to stand on their own interests early in 1640: Edward Partheriche*, Sir Thomas Palmer, and Sir Thomas Peyton*. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 12-13.

Tension mounted between the receipt of the writ on 14 March 1640 and the election ten days later. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 364v-5v. Much of the attention focussed on Nicholas and his religious beliefs. As the mayor and jurats assured him on 19 March, ‘we can nor could desire a greater happiness to befall this town than that you should be one of our burgesses’; for this ‘we have and do labour and strive by all the ways and means we can’. Yet

blackmouth and envy (stirred up as we conceive by the spirit of faction that neither know how to do themselves good, nor care what hurt they do others) belched out a most false and scandalous aspersion upon you, namely that you were a rank papist. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 13-14; CSP Dom. 1639-40, p. 561.

John Philpot told Nicholas that there was no problem securing support from the ‘better sort’, but that the ‘factious non-conformists’ who lay behind the accusations planned to set up Partheriche and one Cullen, despite the fact that they were strangers to the corporation, because they adhered to their ‘confederacy’. Philpot admitted that ‘we fear much what the success will be’, and his expectation that ‘the popular assembly will be as tumultuous as they were in Canterbury’. CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 561-2. Nicholas responded with a defence, as did Northumberland, while the latter also asked Admiral Sir John Pennington to be ‘personally present on the day of the election, or even the night before, and present to them how acceptable this favour would be to me’. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 14-15; CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 568-9.

Disorder duly erupted on the day of the election. While Manwood, Finch and Nicholas were admitted as freemen, Palmer, Peyton and Partheriche were not, the existing freemen being apparently unaware that they were thereby disqualified from the contest. The misapprehension only became apparent when the two men chosen to be ‘prickers’ to assist in the election asked for the names of the candidates, and

being given to understand that there were no other in election than the said Sir John Manwood, Serjeant Finch and Mr Nicholas and that they themselves had disabled and made the said Sir Thomas Palmer, Sir Thomas Peyton and Mr Partheriche uncapable to serve this town and port as barons of the same to the ensuing Parliament, by denying them their freedom, in which regard they were not put into the election, they presently cried out ‘all or none, all or none’, a good while together.

When the assembly was brought to order, the mayor’s enquiry whether the freemen were happy with the ‘prickers’ they had selected provoked renewed cries of ‘all or none, all or none’. As such chants continued, the mayor honoured his threat to chose two prickers himself, but

the great part of the commonalty of freemen of the said town then there present refusing to give their voices or suffrages in the said election, Mr Mayor caused solemn proclamation to be thrice or oftener made that if any freemen of the said town then there present would give his voice or suffrage in the said election, it should be taken for whom he would give it, but they cried out continually as before ‘all or none, all or none’, never once naming any one person in particular, but cried out ‘all or none, all or none’, and nothing else, and denied to give any voice or suffrage in the said election. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 365v-6.

Faced with such disruptive behaviour, the mayor recorded the votes of those willing to take part, resulting in the return of Manwood and Finch. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 366v-67. The majority of the freemen, however,

in a tumultuous manner assembled themselves, and of their own heads without any authority warrant or command so to do, put down their names or hands in writing to the said Sir Thomas Peyton and Mr Partheriche … and thereby pretended that they had chosen them to be barons. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, f. 367v.

The campaign on behalf of two men with very different political and religious beliefs probably indicates that the freemen were motivated by a concern to secure local men, rather than by ideology.

In early April one of the ringleaders of the factious freemen, Hopestill Tilden, having been denied sight of the official record of the election, led a delegation of up to 50 men to Westminster to petition the Short Parliament ‘against the said election, and some of them remained there to prosecute their complaint until the dissolution of the Parliament’. The mayor and jurats warned Manwood and Finch of the possible threat to their position, and reported to an unknown peer, probably the earl of Suffolk, that ‘the commons of this town [are] daily strengthening themselves against us and our proceedings in the election’ and ‘that some of them are already gone up to London to prepare a complaint against us about it’. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, f. 367v; Add. 33512, ff. 40-2. In the end, however, no petition was presented to Parliament, and the two Members represented the borough for the duration of the assembly.

As elections loomed again in October 1640, it was evidently clear that there was little chance of securing the election of candidates who did not meet with the approval of the freemen, and the number of candidates was significantly reduced. Nathaniel Finch initially sought re-election, but his cause may have been undermined by his reluctance to attend sessions in the town in the summer. Add. 33512, ff. 45, 47, 52; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 36-7. The new lord warden, James Stuart, 4th duke of Lennox, recommended Irish peer and future royalist commander William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison [I], promising he would be ‘zealous for the public good’. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 59-60; Add. 33512, f. 71. But the civic authorities warned Lennox of the hostility of ‘the meanest sort’ of freemen and of the likelihood they would chose Partheriche, whom they regarded as ‘a stranger to us’. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 60-1. On the day of the election, 28 October, Grandison and Finch were admitted as freemen, but this time so were Peyton and Partheriche, these two ‘by most voices by pricking’. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 376-7. The mayor informed Lennox that Grandison received 87 votes from ‘the better sort’, but that Peyton had received 179 votes and Partheriche 106, thanks to the ‘residue of the freemen’, who were ‘of the meanest sort of people’. Furthermore, their ringleaders, Thomas Hilder and William Hamon, were both employed in garrisons under Lennox’s command. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 61. Lennox then demanded details of the votes of individual freemen, but was told that

the custom of our town is, and time out of mind hath been, in all elections here to take the voices of the freemen by a stroke for every voice as in the margin, and not to take any man’s name in particular, and how many strokes are so given to number, and he that hath most carries it. E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 61-2.

During the early months of the Long Parliament, Peyton and Partheriche proved assiduous in serving the interests of their borough. They frequently relayed from Westminster both official orders and news of parliamentary affairs, including things of particular interest such as the removal of Lennox as lord warden in March 1642, and the rumours of his replacement by the earl of Northumberland. E. Kent RO, Sa/C4; Sa/ZB2/92; Add. 33512, f. 72. More importantly, they lobbied Parliament on the borough’s behalf. The town clerk, Robert Jager, with whom they worked, reported early in 1642 that Peyton and Partheriche were ‘very sensible of our business touching payment of subsidies … and stir very much in it to have the ports exempted’. E. Kent RO, Sa/C4/1, 3; Sa/FAt39, p. 32; SP16/489, ff. 196-7 (The Barons of the Cinque Ports… Breviat (1642)). Despite this endorsement, however, their efforts were unsuccessful. That November Jager himself, who had earlier faced accusations of bribery, was imprisoned for ‘misdemeanours against Parliament’, and in May 1643 he was replaced as town clerk by James Thurbarne*. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 377, 380; Sa/AC8, f. 3v, 16; Gardiner, Sandwich, 252, 256-7.

On 5 February 1644 Peyton’s persistent failure to respond to calls to participate in Parliament and its war effort culminated in his disablement as an MP. CJ iii. 389b. A writ was issued for the election of his replacement on 25 September 1645, and five days later the freemen unanimously chose Charles Rich*, second son of the earl of Warwick, one of the commissioners for executing the office of the lord warden. It seems that Rich had the support of the county committee at Maidstone. C231/6, p. 22; E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, ff. 55v-56v. However, on 16 October the Commons learned of a communication dated 26 September from Matthew Peck, mayor of Sandwich, ‘containing the contents of a letter written unto him by the earl of Warwick touching the election of his son ... to serve for the town’. CJ iv. 311a. As the diarist Walter Yonge I* noted, this alert

was in pursuance of an ordinance of our House that in case any Lord should[?shall] write any letters for burgesses’ places, that they should send the same letters to this Parliament, because it is an overawing of the burgesses that so they may not proceed to a free election. Add. 18780, f. 144v.

This business, and others like it, was referred to the committee for privileges, but while the House resolved that in future writs should be accompanied by a copy of the ordinance of December 1641, it is not clear exactly how the matter proceeded. CJ iv. 311a. Rich remained in the Commons, but his modest activity seems to have largely benefitted his father; Partheriche was left to maintain communications with the borough in the second half of the decade. E. Kent RO, Sa/XB2/110.

Meanwhile Sandwich’s strategic importance gave it a prominence at Westminster from time to time. In the midst of royalist uprisings in 1648 the Committee at Derby House* learned from James Thurbarne (20 May) of the disembarkation in the town of a man claiming to be the prince of Wales. Accepting Thurbarne’s account that the man had ‘flaxen’ hair and a ‘complexion fair though something tanned, whereas the prince himself is of a black complexion and very black hair’, the Committee agreed that this was an ‘imposter’, deliberately promoted by the royalists in order to encourage the gullible to rally to their cause. The DHC’s rapidly issued instructions to Vice-admiral Thomas Rainborowe* and General Sir Thomas Fairfax* failed to prevent the royalists briefly garrisoning the town, but as was surmised, some inhabitants were ‘well-affected’; the latter were ‘overpowered’ only temporarily, and Fairfax and Sir Michael Livesay* soon regained control. SP21/24, ff. 63, 65, 69; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 241, 243, 301; E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, f. 75v; CJ v. 650b, 659b. All the same, as elsewhere, the presence of soldiers might itself provoke resentment: in March 1649 the council of state requested the prompt removal of Livesay’s forces from Sandwich, because of a conjunction of troops which ‘that place is not any way able to bear’. SP25/62, p. 31. Some guarantee of security remained essential, however, and the defence of the town proved of frequent concern to the council during the Anglo-Dutch war. CSP Dom. 1650, 128, 228, 298, 354, 388, 393, 509; 1652-3, pp. 137, 160, 621; E. Kent RO, Sa/ZB2/119-21; Gardiner, Historic Haven, 264-8. In the late 1650s, the presence of 600 soldiers in the town – testament to fears of a royalist invasion – caused further financial hardship and unhappiness. E. Kent RO, Sa/AP5.

As a result of the seclusion of both Partheriche and Rich at Pride’s Purge, the borough was left without representatives at Westminster during the Rump. It was also unable to send Members to the Nominated Assembly in 1653. Under the terms of the Instrument of Government, the borough was reduced to a single seat, which at the election for the first protectorate Parliament, held on 10 July 1654, was contested by a local man and a nominee of the authorities at Dover. Peter Peke, a member of the town’s common council and a Gray’s Inn lawyer, was defeated by Thomas Kelsey*, governor of Dover Castle, and the clear ‘court’ candidate. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, ff. 106v, 113-14v, 139v.

Subsequently the Cromwellian authorities, in a dramatic echo of their Jacobean predecessors, became disturbed by the unruly nature of borough affairs in Sandwich, and particularly elections. In January 1656 the joint lords warden of the cinque ports (John Lambert* and Robert Blake*) complained to the borough of the multitude of freemen of the vulgar sort’ who, they contended, were

so increased that, by the great number of voices in election of civil officers … they, without due regard to their duties, or the weight and consequences of the business in hand, do sway all matters which way soever they apply themselves, and by their wilful and heady carriage at your common assemblies, prove a great hindrance to the good government of the said town.

Taking into consideration ‘the dangerous consequences which may ensue from such divisions and tumults as usually attend such popular elections’, it was decreed that the common council was once more to be reduced to 24, and was to be elected from ‘the discreetest free commons’. No common freemen was to interfere, ‘save only to hear and see, for better experience and in convenient time and sober manner to make private motions and complaints of such things as shall concern them in particular’. CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 138; SP25/76, pp. 496-7. However, unlike in 1603, this was probably not intended to apply to parliamentary elections, and in the poll for the 1656 Parliament, as in 1654, the commonalty were still recorded as having participated. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, ff. 130r-v. In contrast to 1654, however, voters rejected the man who can be assumed to have been the candidate backed by the governor of Dover and the lords warden, Colonel John Hewson*, and chose instead the town clerk, James Thurbarne. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, f. 131-2.

In the elections for the Parliament of Richard Cromwell, held on 3 January 1659, Sandwich was again able to return two Members. Once more there was a contest involving a local man, Thurbarne, and a candidate presumably proposed on the Dover interest, Colonel Nathaniel Rich*. The election also attracted the candidacy of local gentlemen Richard Meredith* of Leeds Abbey and Sir Robert Hales*, cousin of Sir Thomas Peyton. Although Meredith, Hales and Rich were all admitted as freemen, the townsmen rejected both the influence of the lord warden, and of the gentry magnate Hales, in favour of Thurbarne and the less well-known Meredith. E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, ff. 141v-42v. This tendency persisted after the Restoration, when Thurbarnes continued to assert their independent interest, alongside the similarly placed Oxindens. HP Commons 1660-1690.