DERING, Sir Edward (1599-1644), of Surrenden, Pluckley, Kent

Early career

Through his own genealogical research, Dering traced his family as far back as a sheriff of Kent during the reign of King Stephen.38FSL, Z.e.27; V.b.307; X.d.531/16; Vis. Kent, 207-8; Hasted, Kent, vii. 465-6. Having lived near Lydd until the fifteenth century, the family acquired the manor of Surrenden in Pluckley, and their status within the county grew further in the sixteenth century. Dering’s great-grandfather, John Dering†, represented New Romney in 1547, his great-uncle Edward Dering emerged as a prominent puritan divine, and his father, Anthony Dering†, who represented Clitheroe in 1601, married the daughter of a lord chief baron of the exchequer and sometime Speaker of the House of Commons, and made extensive additions to the estate.39Cent. Kent Stud. U275/T1-40; FSL, V.b.296, p. 55; ‘Edward Dering (c.1540-1576)’, Oxford DNB; HP Commons, 1558-1603.

Dering was born in the Tower of London, where his father served as deputy lieutenant.40Vis. Kent, 140; FSL, V.b.296, p. 203. After his education at Cambridge and the Middle Temple, he purchased a knighthood, shortly before his first marriage into a wealthy Kentish family, which brought a substantial estate. Dering made a brief trip to the continent in 1620, before visiting Scotland and Ireland in 1621, on family business.41Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4. In the early 1620s, Dering displayed obvious scholarly aptitude, and in addition to reading widely on devotional issues, began to demonstrate his own religious zeal as a patron of poor ministers.42Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4. However, his considerable learning did not preclude an avid consumption of almanacs and playbooks, and he was also a frequent visitor to London’s theatres.43Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4; U1107/Z12-13; T. Lennam, ‘Sir Edward Dering’s collection of playbooks, 1619-1624’, Shakespeare Quarterly xvi. 145-53. Indeed, during the early 1620s, Dering himself belonged to an amateur company of players, and even had aspirations as a playwright.44G. Blakemore-Evans, ‘New evidence on the provenance of the Padua prompt-books’, Studies in Bibliography xx. 239; G. Blakemore-Evans, Shakespearean Prompt-Books of the Seventeenth Century (1960), I.i. 8-11; W. Shakespeare, The History of King Henry the Fourth as Revised by Sir Edward Dering (Charlottesville, 1974), 4; FSL, X.d.206; J.Q. Adams, ‘The author-plot of an early seventeenth century play’, The Library ser. 4, xxvi. 17-27. Dering was anything but a strict puritan, and his accounts record frequent losses at cards, tables and bowls, alongside payments to fiddlers and tumblers.45Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4.

Dering’s rise to political prominence followed his second marriage, in early 1625, which brought him into the political circle of his wife’s kinsman George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham.46Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/4-5. Dering later claimed to have accepted a smaller portion than he might have secured by another marriage, because he was promised ‘great advancement and preferment’.47C2/Chas.1/D31/40. It was almost certainly the king’s favourite who secured Dering’s election at Hythe in 1625, in his capacity as lord warden of the Cinque Ports, although Dering was also recommended by Sir Norton Knatchbull†, as a ‘gentleman in my opinion without exception, religious, learned, stout, and in every way worthy of such a place of trust’.48Wilks, Barons of the Cinque Ports, 75-7; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4. This began Dering’s association with, and interest in, the ports which lasted all his life, and which ensured that he was able to secure nomination as their custos brevium in April 1628.49HMC 9th Rep. pt. 2, 427; CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 153. Dering failed to secure election to Parliament in 1626, but deepened his court connections in 1627 by becoming a gentleman extraordinary of the privy chamber, while his status was further enhanced by elevation to the baronetcy, although his role as a commissioner for the Forced Loan in June 1627 had political consequences locally, and he was defeated in the county election by Sir Dudley Digges†.50Stowe 743, f. 64; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/6, 17-18; U350/C2/7; FSL, X.d.531/6.

Although Buckingham’s assassination in 1628 deprived him of his most important patron, Dering managed to secure the position of lieutenant of Dover Castle in the spring of 1629, as deputy to the new lord warden, Theophilus Howard, 2nd earl of Suffolk.51Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/19; U1107/C7; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 485, 566; HMC 13th Rep. iv. 192. Dering’s voluminous correspondence details his activity at Dover, and his relations with the lord warden and other prominent courtiers like Sir John Coke†.52Add. 52798A, ff. 1-55; Add. 47788, ff. 2-68v; Add. 47789, ff. 2-50v; HMC Cowper, i. 452, 456, 460, 463, 487; ii. 5, 56; Stowe 743, ff. 91, 100, 101. Such papers suggest that he worked assiduously, not least in order to oversee much-needed repairs to the castle.53Add. 28937, f. 14; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/A9, A11; HMC 13th Rep. iv. 193-4; HMC 5th Rep. 570. But they also indicate that he quickly came to see the honour as a poisoned chalice.54Cent. Kent Stud. U350/E4. Dering’s disillusionment set in almost immediately, because of a tense relationship with Suffolk, although he also complained that ‘I am tired out of patience, wits and my health with business’, and later bemoaned that he had incurred ‘great debts’.55Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/22, 27; Stowe 743, f. 132. By the spring of 1634 Dering was actively seeking to leave Dover, and did so in the following winter, with the assistance of the 4th earl of Dorset (Sir Edward Sackville†), having been disappointed in his hopes that Suffolk would be replaced by the 2nd earl of Warwick (Robert Rich†).56Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/42; U275/C1/6-7; Stowe 743, f. 122.

Dering’s career at Dover sheds further light on his religious and political views. He was clearly a zealous anti-Catholic from the early 1630s: he sought to tighten procedures regarding the passage of priests and recusants through the port; endeavoured to pursue those who refused to take oaths of supremacy and allegiance; and vigorously denied allegations that he had shown ‘corrupt favour to the papists’.57CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 119, 163, 168, 190, 226, 248, 249, 269, 292, 312, 527; 1631-3, pp. 137, 304, 442; 1633-4, pp. 56, 66, 69, 217; Add. 52798A, ff. 46v-7; Add. 47788, ff. 3v-4, 6v, 7-v, 8, 11v, 12v, 13v, 15, 18, 23, 29, 44, 44v-5, 49, 49v; Add. 47789, f. 44; Add. 52798A, ff. 50v-1, 53v-4v; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/24. Nevertheless, Dering also responded firmly to political malcontents and religious non-conformists. He claimed in March 1631 that ‘there is nothing deserves more chastisement than resistance of authority, for the king’s power preserves our peace’.58Add. 47789, f. 20. He also complained in 1630 about those civic officials who ‘favoured the puritans’.59Add. 47788, f. 10v. Indeed, Dering’s closest friends during this period included conformist Caroline clerics like Isaac Bargrave and John Reading, and he acted as a patron for the latter.60Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/33, 37; Add. 47788, ff. 57-v, 58. It is also clear that Dering was less comfortable with the church under William Laud than under George Abbot.61Cent. Kent Stud. U350/Q1/9. Although the local church disputes in which he became embroiled during the mid-1630s had their roots earlier than Laud’s accession and involved matters unrelated to Laudian reforms, his inclination during the 1630s was probably towards a kind of churchmanship which had ceased to find favour, as represented by Reading and Bargrave, and by one John Jefferay, whom Dering sought to nominate to a living in 1639.62Cent. Kent Stud. U350/Q1/1-6; U275/C1/2, 5; U350/C2/21; CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 361; 1633-4, p. 568; 1636-7, p. 447; Stowe 743, ff. 98-9v, 108. There is, however, little indication during the mid-1630s that he was sympathetic towards non-conformists.63Cent. Kent Stud. U350/O10; U133/O2/8. Indeed, he proved particularly active against the notorious Kentish separatist and conventicler, John Fenner of Egerton, although he was prepared to engage in disputations with more moderate local puritans.64Cent. Kent Stud. U350/O8; U350/O10; U275/C1/8; U133/O2/7; U1551; U350/C2/54; Stowe 743, f. 116.

Dering’s duties at Dover did not prevent him from being an assiduous justice of the peace, and during the 1630s he played a leading role in controversial government initiatives.65Cent. Kent Stud. U113/O2/4-6; U275/C1/4; U350/O6; U350/O10; U350/C2/45, 46; U570; U1107/C6; U1107/O7/2-5; Add. 47788, ff. 46, 64; Add. 47789, f. 3v; CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 88; 1636-7, p. 42; FSL, X.d.531/3, 7; Add. 34195, ff. 22, 26; Stowe 743, ff. 81, 89, 93, 96, 110, 112. He was, therefore, one of the more active commissioners for knighthood fines (1630-1).66Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/C9; U1256/01; U1364/01; U1311/O2; Add. 47788, ff. 13v-14, 15v, 17v-18; 52, 54, 55v-6. On the other hand, while he supported this controversial policy, Dering at least recognised the validity of the Cinque Ports’ claims for exclusion.67Add. 47788, f. 52v; Add. 47789, f. 28v. Subsequently Dering also became involved in the collection of Ship Money. He recognised that this was ‘a business of extraordinary nature and consequence’, and he expressed regret in December 1634 that it was ‘like to be accompanied with so much trouble’.68Stowe 743, ff. 103, 105, 106; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/O3-4; U1107/C12; Add. 47788, f. 72; Add. 47789, f. 50v. Dering himself witnessed opposition at first hand, at a tense meeting in December 1634 to discuss the distribution of the county’s assessment.69Add. 47788, ff. 73-4v.

Retirement, 1636-40

During the second half of the 1630s Dering withdrew from local as well as national political life, in order to concentrate on the management of the family estate (to which he succeeded in 1636), and on his personal and scholarly interests.70Stowe 743, f. 124; FSL, V.b.307, p. 71; V.b.296, pp. 12, 87, 89-99, 102-16, 248-57; X.d.531/4; Add. 47787, ff. 10v-12; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/E61. Dering had been interested in historical research since the early 1620s, and subsequently developed an interest in heraldry, and having pursued such interests while at Dover, he devoted ever more time to his studies thereafter.71Cent. Kent Stud. U2479/Z1; U1107/Z3-11; U350/E4; U715/Z1; U1808/O12; U1823/3/Z1; U1311/O3/6-8; U350/F15-16; U350/F17/1-3, 6; U350/Z10-39; U1392/Z1; U1769/F1-2; U1311/Z1-3; U1579/Z1; U133/Z2-5, 9-11; U275/Q2; Add. 34148, f. 197; Add. 34149-34151; Add. 34156-34160; FSL, X.d.531/8-15; V.b.297, ff. 1-v; Add. 43471; Soc. Ant. MSS 350, 497A. He acquired a significant library of manuscripts, and exchanged books with other scholars, including Sir Simonds D’Ewes* and Sir William Le Neve.72Cent. Kent Stud. U350/Z3; Add. 50130, ff. 1-2v; Add. 47787, ff. 7-9, 15, 57, 57v-58v, 65, 65v, 68v, 69; Add. 34195, f. 20; Stowe 743, f. 95. In 1638 he co-founded a Society of Antiquaries with Sir Christopher Hatton*, Sir Thomas Shirley and William Dugdale.73N and Q xi. 5-6; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/C11.

Dering’s retirement from public life in the late 1630s also reflected a growing hostility towards Laudian reforms, some of which he considered little more than ‘papist’, a view based upon wide reading of all shades of religious opinion during the period.74FSL, X.d.488, ff. 5-6v, 7v, 9, 10; Add. 47787, f. 57; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/O12. He may even have begun to act as a focus for those who sought to complain against their treatment at the hands of the Laudian authorities, and later claimed that his support for church reform during the Long Parliament reflected a desire to strike at Laud - ‘the tallest cedar on the church’s Lebanon’ - and to respond to his experience in Kent in the late 1630s.75Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/53; E. Dering, A Collection of Speeches (1642), 4, 162 (E.197.1). Dering claimed that Laud’s ‘intent of public uniformity was a good purpose, though in the way of his pursuit thereof he was extremely faulty’.76Dering, Collection, 4-5. Nevertheless, he displayed little political disaffection during this period, although he declined the royal summons to join the court at York in 1639, and was probably removed from his position as gentleman of the privy chamber as a result.77Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/63; U350/C2/65; U350/O12; Stowe 743, ff. 128, 130, 132; LC3/1, ff. 24-5. Instead, he devoted his energy to the study of divinity, and to scholarly debates with Catholic authors and acquaintances.78Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/70; U1107/Z3; FSL, X.d.488, ff. 3-4, 7, 10v, 11-v, 12v. The fruit of Dering’s own writing would be The Foure Cardinall Vertues, penned in 1639 and licensed for publication in April 1641.79Cent. Kent Stud. U350/Z2; U275/Z2, pp. 5, 11; E. Dering, The Foure Cardinall-Vertues (1641, E.137.29).

Dering’s concerns that the church was drifting towards Rome provide the immediate background to his decision to stand for election in the Short Parliament. His initial inclination, in December 1639, was to stand for Dover, rather than for the county, and he prepared a series of letters to ‘Dover friends’.80Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/72. For the county seat, Dering backed the clear favourite, Norton Knatchbull*, as well as his kinsman Sir Roger Twysden*, and was opposed to courtiers like Sir Henry Vane I*.81Add. 26785, f. 1; Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 1-3; Stowe 743, f. 136. In a letter to Twysden, Dering claimed to be ‘absolutely resolved that in times so desperate I would contribute no help to any privy councillor’.82Bodl. Top. Kent e.6, p. 81. Reports in January 1640 suggested that Dering was likely to be successful at Dover, even against Sir John Hippisley*, with whom he had been in dispute over the lieutenancy of Dover for many years, and the interest of the lord warden, the earl of Suffolk.83Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/73; Stowe 743, f. 134. However, Dering’s supporters were already hinting at support for his candidacy in the county election, and Dering himself would probably have stood in Knatchbull’s absence.84Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/73; Bodl. Top. Kent e.6, p. 81. During the spring of 1640, Dering came under increasing pressure to stand, and finally decided to enter the race during the spring assizes, on 26 February.85Bodl. Top. Kent e.6, pp. 81-2; Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 7. The most important effect of Dering’s decision was the withdrawal of Vane, and the candidacy of Twysden, making a contest increasingly likely, and the weeks between the assizes and the election were marked by frantic campaigning by both Twysden and Dering.86Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 8; Stowe 743, ff. 140, 142; Bodl. Top. Kent e.6, pp. 1-60; J. Peacey, ‘Tactical organisation in a contested election’, in Parliament, Politics and Elections, 1604-1648 ed. C.R. Kyle (Cam. Soc. ser 5, xvii), 237-72. Dering’s politics and past were clearly an important factor in the election. Vane, eager to undermine Dering’s credentials as an opponent of the court, stressed how active he had been regarding knighthood fines and Ship Money.87Stowe 743, f. 140. Twysden, on the other hand, affirmed that Dering was also accused of puritanism; that he was ‘none of our church’, and that he ‘never would go up to the rails to receive the communion’.88Stowe 184, ff. 10v-11. At the election itself, Dering was defeated by Twysden in a poll, although he clearly felt aggrieved at what he considered to be underhand tactics, and even fraud, used against him.89Bodl. Top. Kent e.6, pp. 83-7; Rawl. D.141, p. 4; Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 5.

Having failed to secure election to the Commons, Dering returned to his studies, and to his disputes with Catholics.90Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/80. However, a sense of injustice regarding the spring election probably ensured that he redoubled his efforts to secure a county seat in the Long Parliament elections in the following autumn, and seems also to have bolstered the zeal of his supporters, and Dering quickly secured the active assistance of a number of friends and relatives.91Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 8-12; Add. 26785, ff. 3, 5, 7, 9, 13; Stowe 184, f. 15-v; Stowe 743, ff. 147, 150, 155, 159; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/83. Not the least of these was Dering’s wife Unton, who offered a powerful kinship network, as well as practical assistance, and moral, religious, and tactical advice.92Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/82-3; U275/C1/11. Having been branded as a puritan, despite his failure to secure the godly vote earlier in the year, Dering evidently courted this portion of the electorate.93Cent. Kent Stud. U275/C1/11; U350/C2/83. Among the many other candidates, the most powerful was Sir John Culpeper*, and there quickly emerged strong support for a Dering-Culpeper ticket. Despite this, there was little trust, and no little competition, between them.94Stowe 743, ff. 149, 156; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/83. The main tension between them seems to have been about status, specifically who should take the first seat, even though division on this issue made outright defeat a strong possibility.95Stowe 184, ff. 15-16; Stowe 743, ff. 153, 157, 158; Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 15, 18-19; Add. 26785, f. 17. At no point were there fewer than three candidates canvassing for votes, and Dering’s position was damaged by lingering resentments from the spring, as well as doubts about his track record in enforcing knighthood fines, and his work against separatists.96Stowe 184, ff. 15-17, 27; Stowe 743, f. 149; Add. 26785, f. 15. There was frenetic electioneering in the final days of the campaign, and although at the election Dering and Culpeper were returned easily, there was ‘much ado’ regarding who should get the first seat, which eventually went to Dering.97Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 16; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/84; Bodl. Rawl. D.141, p. 6. It is unclear on what grounds a complaint subsequently emerged from the supporters of the third candidate, the puritan Richard Browne I*, but it was quickly dismissed by the Commons on 4 December 1640.98D’Ewes (N), 103, 107.

Moderate Reformer, Nov. 1640-June 1641

When Dering arrived at Westminster he was clearly intent upon effecting reform, and was perceived by others to be a reformer. He travelled up to London with Thomas Wilson, a Kentish minister who had been deprived of his living for opposing the Book of Sports, and was already the target for members of Kent’s godly community who expected help from Parliament.99Add. 26785, ff. 19, 21. During the opening weeks and months of the session, Dering’s parliamentary career reflected both his status and his perceived willingness to support change. His papers reveal how he became the focus for dozens of petitioners, by no means all of whom were those Kentishmen who could be expected to have relied upon him in his capacity as knight of their shire.100Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/O13; Add. 26785, ff. 25, 28, 52, 53, 55, 56, 66, 78, 82, 86-106, 112-17, 122-3, 127-69; Stowe 184, f. 25; Stowe 744, ff. 2, 4, 6, 10.

In the Commons, Dering was involved in a number of early committees and conferences on a variety of issues relating to reform, such as monopolies, coat and conduct money, and the breach of parliamentary privileges in 1628 and 1629, as well as election abuses.101CJ ii. 21a, 25b, 31a, 34b, 39b, 50b, 64a, 91a, 101a, 108a, 114a. He also provided the House with information regarding Secretary of state Sir Francis Windebanke*, who had fled to France in the face of possible impeachment, although he was willing to grant another potential delinquent, Lord Keeper John Finch†, a parliamentary hearing.102D’Ewes (N), 125n; Northcote Note Bk. 85. From a very early stage, however, it was clear that Dering’s overwhelming concern was the need for church reform. This was first made apparent in his speech on behalf of Thomas Wilson, which resulted in Dering being named to a committee regarding ministers who had suffered under Laudian government.103CJ ii. 25a; D’Ewes (N), 20n, 531, 537; Bodl. Rawl. C.956, ff. 14v, 49; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 39-40; Dering, Collection, 6-10. Dering claimed that it was increasingly difficult to distinguish between ‘power and law’, and added regarding Laud that, ‘I hope … before this year of threats run around, his grace will either have more grace, or no grace at all’.104Dering, Collection, 7, 10. Like Dering’s other speeches, this was widely circulated in manuscript, and was reckoned to be among the most important made in the session’s opening weeks.105Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/86; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 254; HMC Cowper, ii. 263; HMC 10th Rep. iv. 202-4; HMC Portland, i. 27; HMC 4th Rep. 370; Stowe 744, f. 1.

During a debate in the grand committee for religion on 23 November, Dering declared his opposition to both papists and the ‘prelating faction’, and highlighted the work of high commission, and the punishment of ministers, as well as the way in which Laudian censorship served to ‘clip the tongues of such witnesses’. He also claimed that the press was ‘so handled that truth is suppressed and popish pamphlets fly abroad cum privilegio’. Dering moved for the appointment of a sub-committee to consider the cases of oppressed ministers, and the issue of the press, a body which he subsequently chaired.106Dering, Collection, 12-13, 15-16, 42; CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 269; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1345-6; iv. 55-6; Add. 26786, ff. 1v, 2. The minutes of this committee (25 Nov. 1640-12 Jan. 1641) reveal the scale of their task, and Dering himself drafted their first report, which was delivered to the Commons on 23 December.107Add. 26786, ff. 2v-11v, 14v, 15v-17, Bodl. Tanner 137, f. 15; D’Ewes (N), 182; Dering, Collection, 43-8. The pressure of cases presented to the committee led Dering to suggest that such private petitions should be considered every day.108D’Ewes (N), 334. He was also named to a number of committees on private matters, at least one of which he chaired.109CJ ii. 85b, 93b, 94a, 95a, 103b, 113a, 151b, 155a, 160b, 161a, 215a. Although Dering’s sub-committee appears to have been dismissed in January 1641, he was also appointed to committees to consider the cases of particular puritan clerics, and to consider complaints against Laudian bishops, as well as to consider the cases of notorious Catholics, and wider issues relating to priests and recusants.110CJ ii. 40a, 52b, 56a, 66, 73b, 74b, 75a, 139a; Add. 26785, f. 62. He was also named to the committee for preaching ministers (8 Jan. 1641), and ordered to prepare a conference with the Lords regarding cases relating to Scottish ministers in England and Ireland, and regarding plans for the demolition of altars and images.111CJ ii. 65a, 72a. There is no evidence, however, to corroborate Dering’s later claim to have delivered a speech on 14 November against the new Canons issued by Convocation, although he was certainly appointed to the committee to consider the matter two days later.112Dering, Collection, 24-42; Nalson, Impartial Colln. i. 667-71; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 294-5; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 100-104; D’Ewes (N), 149n; CJ ii. 52a.

Having been lobbied by supporters of church reform in Kent, Dering was responsible for presenting the county petition against the bishops and church hierarchy on 13 January 1641, and he himself claimed that ‘the pride, the avarice, the ambition and oppression, by our ill clergy is epidemical’.113Add. 26785, ff. 23, 27; Procs. in Kent 1640 ed. Larking, 25-38; D’Ewes (N), 249; Dering, Collection, 17-18, 20-24. Dering also spoke in favour of the London petition against bishops (8 Feb.), and was named to the committee regarding the ministers’ remonstrance, as well as to the committees to consider bills for the abolition of superstition and idolatry (13 Feb.), for disabling the clergy from exercising temporal authority (8 Mar.), and for making pluralities illegal (10 Mar.).114CJ ii. 84b, 85b, 99a, 100b; D’Ewes (N), 360; Dering, Collection, 18. This enthusiasm for church reform also explains his nomination to committees regarding recusants and scandalous ministers, and his involvement in debates on deans and chapters, during the spring of 1641.115CJ ii. 113b, 156a, 184b, 196a; Procs. LP iii. 212. Despite this, some of those who lobbied Dering in the spring of 1641 correctly sensed that his position was considerably less advanced than that of others in the House of Commons.116Stowe 184, ff. 27-8. It is revealing, for example, that he acted as a teller against a motion to expand the size of the committee to consider the ministers’ remonstrance (9 Feb.).117D’Ewes (N), 337, 343; CJ ii. 81b. Moreover, there were a number of instances during the spring when he was relied upon for support not only by those who pressed for further reformation of ‘base ministers’ and of the prelacy, but also by local ministers who faced hostility from local puritans.118Add. 26785, ff. 28, 40, 84, 87, 107, 118, 120, 125, 170, 171-82, 183-214, 218; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/86; U350/C2/88; U350/C2/89; U350/C2/90, 91, 92; T. Wilson, Davids Zeale for Zion (1641), sig. A3-4 (E.156.14); CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 454; Stowe 184, ff. 33, 39-40.

The weight of petitions regarding the treatment of ministers and the issue of printing ensured that Dering’s sub-committee was revived and made into a standing committee in February 1641, and it eventually became known as the committee regarding printing, or the licensing committee.119CJ ii. 84, 91a, 108a; D’Ewes (N), 393n. During the months which followed, the Commons referred many scandalous pamphlets to the consideration of Dering’s committee, often upon Dering’s own motion, including works regarding the Protestation and the trial of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), as well as the irregular printing of Members’ speeches, including his own.120CJ ii. 136a, 139a, 148a, 148b, 190a, 190b, 198b, 206a, 212b, 221a; Add. 26785, f. 43; Procs. LP iv. 271, 377, 383, 457, 485, 492, 609; E. Dering, Three Speeches of Sir Edward Dearings (1641); The Speeches of Sr Edward Deering (1641); Foure Speeches made by Sr Edward Deering (1641). On this issue, as on others, Dering was lobbied by a number of interested parties.121Add. 26785, ff. 30, 34, 42, 44; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/Q5; CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 530-1; Stowe 184, ff. 35, 37, 41-2; Stowe 743, ff. 163-4. In July 1641, he was also made chairman of another committee regarding the business of printing and licensing, and in the following November he was ordered to ensure the prevention of abuses by licentious printing, particularly in terms of the early newspaper coverage of Parliament.122CJ ii. 222b, 319b.

During the spring of 1641 Dering was by turns fascinated by developments at Westminster and frustrated that his workload prevented him from returning to Kent.123Add. 26785, f. 32. His correspondence reveals the interest that he took in legislation regarding high commission and star chamber, as well as in proceedings against Strafford, although he had little sympathy with those intent on finding the latter guilty of treason. He wrote dismissively, therefore, of the ‘sullen boys’ who ‘broke up school’ in the wake of the king’s refusal to agree to the attainder, and concluded: ‘God send good issue, lest my despairs begin to go above my faith … that yet … we shall be cured but with a confusion’.124Add. 26785, f. 36. In the wake of the army plot, Dering became involved in matters regarding security, both on land and at sea, and implementation of the poll tax, as well as tumults in London, and he claimed to have played a leading role in placating the crowds which gathered at Parliament’s doors.125CJ ii. 114b, 133b, 134a, 139b, 141b, 143b, 146a, 152a, 180a; Add. 26785, f. 38. The pressure of business led him to propose consideration of which business most required attention before the king’s journey to Scotland and Parliament’s planned recess.126CJ ii. 149b; Procs. LP iv. 439, 444-5; Add. 26785, f. 38.

Dering’s most important intervention in parliamentary proceedings, however, was to introduce the bill for the abolition of episcopacy (27 May). Dering professed to be ‘sorry to see so many petitions delivered against the episcopal government’, and his belief that Parliament should ‘ever have gone for the eclipsing of their power, but not for the utter extirping of them’. Nevertheless, he claimed that ‘mere necessity’ now justified the abolition of episcopacy.127Procs. LP iv. 605, 610, 611, 613; Two Diaries of Long Parl. 119. According to Dering’s own account of his speech, he presented ‘a very short (but a very sharp) bill, such as these times and their sad necessities have brought forth’, and he claimed to have offered it ‘not for delight but for a cure … the last and only cure if (as I hope) all other remedies have first been tried’.128Dering, Collection, 63. He also claimed to have said that ‘I never was for ruin, so long as I could hold any hope of reforming. My hopes that way are even almost withered’.129Dering, Collection, 64. Nevertheless, he also claimed to have added that

if my former hopes of a full reformation may yet revive and prosper, I will again divide my sense upon this bill, and yield my shoulders to underprop the primitive, lawful and just episcopacy, yet so, as that I will never be wanting with my utmost pains and prayers to root out all the undue adjuncts to it, and superstructures on it.130Dering, Collection, 64-5.

This account of Dering’s speech appears to be supported by the recollection of the 1st earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*).131Clarendon, Hist. i. 314.

Doubt and disillusion, June 1641-Aug. 1642

In the weeks which followed, Dering emerged as more moderate than many hard-line reformers. This was evident not just from his lenient attitude towards certain delinquents who suffered ill-health, or his willingness to present a bill for granting a royal subsidy, which was rejected by the House on 19 June, but also from his attitude towards the church.132Procs. LP v. 7, 15, 245; CJ ii. 194a, 194b. On 21 June, according to his own account, Dering expressed his opinion that it was necessary to know with what the current church hierarchy was to be replaced before it was removed.133Dering, Collection, 66-7; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 293-6. His solution was to do away with ‘episcopal presidency’ and ‘domineering prelacy’, and he was evidently determined to remove ‘this lordly domineerer who plays the monarch (perhaps the tyrant) in a diocese’, saying that ‘this kind of episcopacy … smells rank of the papacy’.134Dering, Collection, 74, 76. But while he was ‘for abolishing of our present episcopacy’, he nevertheless sought to ensure ‘restoration of the pure primitive episcopal presidency’.135Dering, Collection, 76. Dering sought measures ‘for putting all church government into the hands of commissioners in every diocese’, adding that such commissioners of clergy and laity were to remain in position ‘until a future government be resolved on’.136Dering, Collection, 68; Procs. LP v. 262-3. On 17 July, Dering urged the House to proceed with the bill regarding episcopacy, which he worried was ‘a growing bill’; adding that ‘all the eyes of Christendom was upon us, and that if we did not proceed speedily with some show of government that then we would lay it aside’.137Procs. LP v. 687.

Perhaps disillusioned with the direction of proceedings, and with growing radicalism over the church, Dering made no recorded appearances in the Commons between 3 August 1641 and the reassembly of the Commons after the recess, doubtless to the disappointment of those who continued to inundate him with petitions.138Procs. LP vi. 183; Dering, Collection, 78; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/94; Add. 26785, ff. 46, 219-28. That he was now considered to be an ally of conservatives in the Commons is evident from the fact that one Kentish friend expressed concern at rumours that he ‘who fought in the front, wheels about’, and from the fact that Sir John Holland* encouraged him to return to Westminster in mid-August 1641, saying ‘the cause will want your company, your friends, your powerful assistance, and you after the ensuing week’.139Stowe 184, f. 43; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/95.

Dering returned to Westminster after the recess, and immediately became embroiled in a row over Parliament’s orders of 8 September – regarding the removal of communion tables, rails, crucifixes, and scandalous pictures – and thus revealed his resistance not merely to radical reform, but also to dramatically enhanced parliamentary power (21 Oct.). Dering ‘moved against the validity of our said orders, and that none were bound to observe them, and therefore that none could be punished for the neglect of them’.140Add. 26785, ff. 47, 65; D’Ewes (C), 19. He claimed to have said that the public ‘know they sent us hither as their trustees, to make and unmake laws. They know they did not send us hither to rule and govern them by arbitrary, revocable and disputable orders, especially in religion’.141Dering, Collection, 79; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 392-3; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, i. 190-1. Dering’s speech provoked an angry response from Henry Marten*, who suggested that he should withdraw while the House considered his offence in questioning parliamentary orders.142D’Ewes (C), 20; Add. 26785, f. 65. Dering remained in the Commons, however, and later claimed to have delivered a speech on 22 October during a debate regarding the bill against the clergy meddling in secular affairs. His account suggests that he agreed with moves to restrict clerical power, while refusing to agree that such interference was ‘inconsistent with their function’.143Dering, Collection, 89, 90. There is more documentary evidence to back Dering’s claim to have made another speech on 23 October, in which he called for the creation of ‘a free, learned, grave, religious synod’.144Dering, Collection, 94; D’Ewes (C), 30; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 394. He asserted that ‘with it we are curable, without it, I look for no peace’, and he also suggested that ‘between papism on the one hand and Brownism on the other, narrow is the way, and few there be do find it, to the right good Protestantism’.145Dering, Collection, 93, 94; Add. 26785, f. 49.

For the remainder of 1641, Dering was largely preoccupied with issues surrounding the Grand Remonstrance, although he was also named to committees regarding poll money and the disarming of recusants.146CJ ii. 308b, 314a, 349b. On 10 November, he moved that no copies of the Remonstrance should be circulated until it was complete, and his reservations regarding that document quickly became apparent.147D’Ewes (C), 117. During a debate on 16 November, Dering apparently challenged passages which were ‘very aspersive to our religion’, and rejected claims that the liturgy contained ‘vain repetitions’ and passages of ‘superstition’.148Dering, Collection, 95. He also rejected claims that the bishops were responsible for bringing idolatry and popery into the church, something which he considered to be ‘too great an accusation’.149D’Ewes (C), 151-2. He subsequently acted as a teller alongside Sir Hugh Cholmeley* against this clause, only to be defeated by those whose votes were recorded by Sir Thomas Barrington* and Sir Martin Lumley*.150CJ ii. 317b; D’Ewes (C), 152.

Dering later professed to have made another speech on 20 November – unrecorded by the diarists – in which he claimed that passages in the Remonstrance regarding the liturgy ought to be laid aside, not to a ‘perpetual silence’, but rather in order to be referred to a synod.151Dering, Collection, 97; D’Ewes (C), 181n. He also claimed to have attacked ‘growing evils’ in the pulpits and the press, whether sectarian or Presbyterian, referring to both as ‘repugnant innovations’, of which Parliament was made to seem ‘patrons and protectors’, and he repeated his call for a synod, without which ‘England is like to turn itself into a great Amsterdam’.152Dering, Collection, 98, 99, 105, 106. Dering’s next speech, on 22 November, reiterated his objection to the generalised claims in the Remonstrance regarding the undesirable influence of the bishops.153Verney’s Notes, 122; D’Ewes (C), 183n; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 425-8; Nalson, Impartial Colln. ii. 668-74. He said that ‘here is a charge of a high crime against all the bishops in the land, and that above all proof that yet I have heard’, and he proceeded to defend a number of moderate prelates.154Dering, Collection, 110-12. More famously, Dering also expressed his opposition to the very idea of such a remonstrance.155Dering, Collection, 108. He claimed that the people ‘do humbly and heartily thank you for many good laws and statutes already enacted, and pray for more … They do not expect to hear any other stories of what you have done, much less promises of what you will do’.156Dering, Collection, 109. In what became the most famous objection to the Remonstrance, Dering apparently said:

I presently imagined that like faithful counsellors, we should hold up a glass unto his majesty, I thought to represent unto the king the wicked counsels of pernicious counsellors, the restless turbulency of practical papists, the treachery of false judges, the bold innovations of some superstition brought in by some pragmatical bishops, and the rotten part of the clergy. I did not dream that we should remonstrate downward, tell stories to the people, and talk of the king as of a third person.157Dering, Collection, 109, 119.

Dering also acted as a teller against plans for printing the Remonstrance, although he may have been willing to join the delegation to present the document to the king, and later claimed that the Remonstrance ‘went out of the House much better than it came in’.158CJ ii. 322b, 327a, 328b; D’Ewes (C), 219-20; Dering, Collection, 107.

Rumours quickly circulated that Dering was likely to be punished for his speeches in the House, and although no action appears to have been taken, he evidently withdrew from the Commons after 20 December.159CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 188; CJ ii. 349b. He remained in London, however, and observed events in the aftermath of the attempted arrest of the Five Members. He wrote that ‘my heart pities a king so fleeting and so friendless, yet without one noted vice’, and expressed opposition to the way in which Parliament’s actions had prompted the king’s departure from London in ‘terror’, and he concluded that ‘the times are desperate’.160Add. 26785, ff. 59-v. Dering also claimed that ‘if I could be [John] Pym* with honesty, I had rather be Pym than King Charles’, and he added his opinion that ‘the king is too flexible and too good natured’.161Add. 26785, f. 60. Even at this stage, however, prominent reformers in Kent like Augustine Skynner* continued to look to Dering as a champion of their cause.162Stowe 744, ff. 13-v.

Dering may only have been motivated to return to the Commons in response to the publication of an unauthorised edition of one of his speeches, which prompted him to move for the revival of his printing committee (20 Jan. 1642).163PJ i. 120, 125, 216, 220; CJ ii. 387a; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/96. It was soon Dering himself, however, who became the focus of the House’s attention. Dering’s decision to publish a collection of his speeches in late January 1642 was almost certainly a reaction to their unauthorised publication, but it may also have reflected his response to their popularity, not least at court.164Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/96-7; E. Dering, A Most Worthy Speech (1642, E.200.44); Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 270. Dering was also motivated, however, by a desire to clear his name, and to demonstrate that he had never supported ‘root and branch’ reform as it had come to be understood, and to deny claims that ‘my conscience was not so good as in the beginning of the Parliament’.165Dering, Collection, A3, 2, 162. He sought to correct misapprehensions regarding the meaning of individual speeches, and justified publishing the texts of planned, but undelivered, speeches on the grounds that they demonstrated the true nature of his views, and because some of them had already been printed illicitly.166Dering, Collection, 11, 16, 17, 24, 48-9, 61-2, 65, 81, 88, 96, 107, 119, 120, 139, 141-4, 146, 148, 152. E. Dering, A Consideration and Resolution (1641, E.156.23).

Particularly important was his account of the bill against episcopacy, which had brought about ‘the obloquy I suffer’.167Dering, Collection, 62. He claimed that the bill ‘was pressed into my hand’ by Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, having been given to the latter by Sir Henry Vane II* and Oliver Cromwell*, and he suggested that ‘the bill did hardly stay in my hand so long as to make a hasty perusal’.168Dering, Collection, 62, 63. This account accords with the opinion of Clarendon, who later wrote that ‘they prevailed with Sir Edward Dering (a man very opposite to all their designs, but a man of levity and vanity, easily flattered by being commended)’.169Clarendon, Hist. i. 314. Dering also claimed that he presented the bill with ‘so fain recommendations’, and pointed out that ‘the bill was then less than two sheets of paper and by subjoining two more might have given us the old original episcopacy even with the same hand that abrogated the present’.170Dering, Collection, 3. In essence, he suggested that ‘rooters’ were more moderate in the spring of 1641 than in January 1642, and he professed: ‘I did not dream, at that time, of extirpation and abolition of any more than his [Laud’s] archepiscopacy’.171Dering, Collection, 3-4, 5.

Dering probably knew what the response would be to the publication of his speeches.172Add. 26785, f. 63; A Message of Peace (1642, E.142.3); Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/96. At the end of his book he had explained that ‘such of the prelatical party as are in love with present pomp and power will be averse unto me, because I pare so deep; the rooters, the anti-prelatic party, declaim against me because I will not take all away’.173Dering, Collection, 161. Dering’s book was duly brought to the attention of the House on 2 February, the day on which he had been named to a committee regarding recusants.174CJ ii. 409a. After reading passages from the book, the Commons heard Dering’s response, before commanding him to withdraw.175CJ ii. 411a; PJ i. 255, 257, 261. During the debate which followed, Dering was attacked by a number of leading figures in the emerging parliamentarian party, while those who spoke in mitigation of his offence, if not necessarily in his defence, included Sir Edward Partheriche* and Sir Henry Heyman*.176PJ i. 261-5. The debate reveals that the book was considered not merely scandalous and seditious, but also ‘vainglorious’, since it contained speeches ‘which he had intended to have spoken’.177PJ i. 253. One diarist noted that it was considered offensive because Dering had taken part in ‘discovering the secrets of the House’, and in ‘naming members of the House to their disgrace’.178Verney’s Notes, 152. The book was eventually declared a scandalous infringement of the honour and privilege of the Commons, and while copies were ordered to be burnt by the public hangman, Dering himself was expelled from the House and imprisoned in the Tower. Such punishments were controversial, not least because of (accurate) predictions that they would increase demand for his book, and this forced at least one division.179CJ ii. 411a, 414a; PJ i. 253, 254, 255, 268, 270, 283; HMC Portland, i. 31; Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 287, 292; Add. 26785, f. 65v. The House also demanded that Dering hand over papers pertaining to his parliamentary duties.180CJ ii. 419b; PJ i. 304.

News of Dering’s punishment quickly circulated widely in both manuscript and print, and just as it was felt that he had courted celebrity, so it was feared that he would become the focus of dissent and even unrest.181Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 286, 296; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 273, 275, 278, 282. Indeed, within days of his arrest rumours were circulating of planned protests by Dering’s supporters, and when 4,000 Kentish men arrived in London in order to lobby Parliament, it was felt that ‘they came on behalf of Sir Edward Dering … being sorry for the censure and imprisonment upon him’.182CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 281; HMC 2nd Rep. 47; PJ i. 349. This probably explains why Dering’s opponents, certainly Cromwell and perhaps also Pym, sought to undermine his reputation in print, not least by accusing him of abandoning his former zeal for reform.183Newes from the Tower (1642), sig. A2; PJ i. 293; HMC 4th Rep. 596; J. P. The Copie of a Letter (1641), sig. A2v-3v.

Dering’s release was ordered on 11 February, after his petition was presented to the House by Sir John Culpeper.184CJ ii. 426b; PJ i. 348, 352, 354. Within little over a month, however, he had incurred the wrath of Parliament once again, for having promoted the proto-royalist Kentish petition at the county assizes, and it was also alleged that he had sought to raise 40,000 men to attend its presentation to Parliament. On 28 March the Commons voted the petition ‘scandalous, dangerous, and tending to sedition’, and they ordered Dering to be detained.185‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, ii. 201-3, 211; CJ ii. 501b, 502b-503a; PJ ii. 100-102, 107; LJ iv. 676a, 678b; HMC Buccleuch, i. 295; HMC Cowper, ii. 311; HMC Montagu, 148; Many Remarkable Passages (1642), sig. A2v (E.148.6); Stowe 184, f. 49. Dering eventually appeared in the House on 4 April, but as his interrogation was prepared he escaped from custody, apparently intending to make his way to the continent.186CJ ii. 507a, 510a, 511b, 513b, 514b; LJ iv. 703a; PJ ii. 133; HMC Buccleuch, i. 296; HMC Montagu, 151; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s narrative’, ii. 212. On 18 April the House decided to impeach him, and articles were duly prepared by Sir Robert Cooke*, John Wylde* and Sir Peter Wentworth*.187CJ ii. 533b, 535a, 536b, 537a-b; PJ ii. 184, 189, 198, 203; LJ v. 9a, 14b, 17b-19b. Dering was ordered to appear on 2 May in order to respond to the charges, but there is no evidence that he did so.188LJ v. 19b. Dering’s speeches were republished in time for the mass lobby of Parliament which he had sought to arrange, and the Commons displayed clear concern at his potential to become a rallying point for opposition.189PJ ii. 237-8, 248; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 316; CJ ii. 549b; E. Dering, A Collection of Speeches (1642); LJ v. 244a, 245a.

Reluctant royalist, 1642-4

By August 1642 Dering had resolved to join the king, and when the parliamentarian troops in Kent arrived to arrest him he was already at Nottingham, where he witnessed the raising of the royal standard and received a royal pardon.190HMC Hastings, ii. 87; HMC 5th Rep. 22; CJ ii. 733a; Cent. Kent Stud. U275/F3; A True Relation of a Brave Exploit (1642), 4, 7 (E.115.8). Although there is evidence from early October 1642 to suggest that Dering sought to return to Parliament, he remained active on behalf of the royalists.191Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/99; Stowe 184, ff. 51, 61; Add. 18777, f. 78v. As a result, his estates were sequestered, and in May 1643 his wife claimed that they had been ‘thrice distressed by soldiers’.192Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/A13; U350/O13. Dering himself was commissioned to raise a regiment for the king in July 1643, and he may subsequently have been present at the first battle of Newbury and at Arundel.193HMC Portland, i. 130; HMC Bath, iv. 353; Stowe 184, f. 53.

Dering’s military career was brief. He resigned his commission in November 1643 and returned to Westminster in January 1644, amid rumours of a falling out with the king.194HMC Hastings, ii. 118; Declaration Wherein is Full Satisfaction Given, sig A2; Nalson, Impartial Colln. ii. 249. After a short spell in the custody of the serjeant at arms, and some debate in the Commons, the House agreed to consider his petition (3 Feb.).195Harl. 166, ff. 6, 7, 8v; HMC Cowper, ii. 341; Mercurius Anglicus no. 1 (31 Jan.-7 Feb. 1644), 5 (E.31.20). The petition was heard upon 7 February. Dering both acknowledged his ‘great weakness’, and expressed his conviction that the royalist party ‘seeks all possible ways to destroy the liberty of the subject involved in Parliaments’, his concern at the presence of papists within the royal army, and his opposition to the Oxford Parliament.196CJ iii. 390a-b; Declaration Wherein is Full Satisfaction Given, sig. A2, A3; Whitelocke, Mems. i. 238; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 383-4; Nalson, Impartial Colln. ii. 249; Stowe 184, f. 61. As the first royalist to return to Westminster upon parliamentary terms, Dering was granted liberty upon subscribing the Covenant.197CJ iii. 390a-b, 393b, 401b; Harl. 166, f. 9; CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 13, 16; CCC 832; SP23/223, pp. 638-9; HMC Hastings, ii. 122.

Dering retired to Kent in late February 1644, and although he was aware that he might one day have to escape to France in the event of royalist victories, he resolved to devote his energies to his studies, and with securing the publication of his Discourse of Proper Sacrifice, which had been written in the summer of 1640.198Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 575; Cent. Kent Stud. U350/C2/101, 102; U350/Z1; E. Dering, A Discourse of Proper Sacrifice (1644, E.51.13). He still needed to contend with the county committee, however, who were less forgiving and less trusting than the Commons. Dering pleaded his case to them in an attempt to secure the return of his estates, but they insisted that he should publish a full declaration recanting his errors and attacking the royalist cause.199Stowe 184, ff. 62, 64-v, 66, 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 76, 77; E. Dering, A Declaration by Sir Edward Dering (1644, E.40.5). Having agreed to the committee’s demands, however, he was evidently frustrated that he continued to face resistance to his pleas for financial relief, and he was forced to enlist the support of a large number of MPs in order to secure an order of the House which placed pressure on local hardliners, who accused him of maintaining correspondence with Oxford, and of seeking to exact revenge upon tenants who had paid rent to the sequestrators.200Stowe 184, ff. 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105; CJ iii. 513a. Dering, who was living in poverty by this stage, professed himself ‘hopeless and helpless’, and such difficulties continued until his death, intestate, on 22 June.201Stowe 184, f. 103; Cent. Kent Stud. U133/L1; Harl. 166, f. 76v; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 384.

Dering was buried at Pluckley, where he had long since laid down precise details regarding the monumental window which he hoped to see erected.202Cent. Kent Stud. U350/F17/5. His fine, upon an estate valued at £800 a year, was subsequently set at £1,000, although the sequestration of the estate was quickly lifted without fine.203CCC 832; CJ iii. 572b, 603a; Harl. 166, f. 109. Dering was succeeded by his son, Sir Edward Dering†, who was forced to petition Parliament in September 1644, in the face of perilous debts, and who probably secured a pass to travel to the continent in November 1644 in order to evade his creditors.204HMC 6th Rep. 26; Cent. Kent Stud. U1107/E43; LJ vii. 70b; HP Commons, 1660-1690; Diaries and Pprs. of Sir Edward Dering ed. M.F. Bond (1976); C5/395/78.