Alan Everitt , The Local Community and the Great Rebellion, London: 1969.

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Alan Everitt , The Local Community and the Great Rebellion, London: 1969.

(Maynooth Library reference: 940 HIS/G70)

In this short pamphlet, Alan Everitt examines the conflict between loyalty to county and loyalty to state, and looks to local circumstances to explain why two neighbouring counties, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, had very different experiences of the civil wars of the 1640s.

The allegiance of the provincial gentry to the community of their native shire is one of the basic facts of English history in 17^th and 18^th centuries.

While the sense of national identity had been growing since Tudor times, the author believes that the sense of county identity was the more powerful sentiment in 1640-1660.

Factors in the development of regional loyalty

Growth of county administration;

Development of county institutions;

Expanding wealth of local gentry and their increasing intermarriage;

Growing interest in local history and legal custom;

Rise of county towns as social, cultural, administrative centres;

In some respects the civil war period, by greatly adding to the complexity and volume of local govt, increased the sense of county awareness.

English society also fostered the sense of county cohesion. Although some of the gentry attended universities and wealthier families spent part of the year in London, the vast majority of gentry spent their lives within a few miles of their native manor-house. If time was spent at university it was mainly to fit them out in their roles as justices, squires and landlords in their home county.

Everitt suggests that at the basis of the provincial gentry’s attachment was economic necessity. The gentry were more plentiful in mid-17^th century, and consequently landed estates were smaller. To make a profit, they had to be actively involved in the running of the farm and in breeding stock. Farming was still considered a respectable occupation for a gentleman at that time, although it was later to be regarded as inferior.

County versus State

England in 1640 resembled a union of partially independent county-states, like Canada or the US today.

During the civil war, there were three periods of intense crisis and on each occasion the conflict between loyalty to county and loyalty to state was one of the basic issues.

1. Winter 1643-4, an attempt to form groups of counties into regions for the purposes of raising troops to protect amalgamated areas largely failed. Counties had been raising their own troops to defend their own county only.

2. Winter 1644-5. The parliamentarians realised that the raising of troops on a regional basis wasn’t going to succeed, and formed a nationally-organised army, raised locally put paid for and controlled centrally. For similar reasons The king’s army also underwent reorganisation. The result of the strengthened armies provoked the decisive Battle of Naseby, which was not only a triumph of parliament over king, but of state over the county community.

3. In 1648 in Kent and elsewhere, the county community rose in an effort to curb the central government. They made a desperate bid to convert regional loyalty into pro-king support, but were unable to form a union between the rebellious shires. The Kentish leaders refused to negotiate with neighbouring counties and were overwhelmed by the parliamentarian New Model Army.

The War in the East Midlands: a Study of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire

Geographically, both of these small inland counties were in the front line of battle. Throughout the war, they were subject to raiding and plundering, and there were several garrisons in both counties. In 1645, Leicester town was sacked by pro-king forces, followed a few days later by the defeat of the king at Naseby in Northamptonshire.

Yet despite the fact that they adjoined each other and shared the horrors of civil strife, their fortunes in this period were remarkably dissimilar.

Leicestershire and the Civil War

Like many provincial counties, Leicestershire tried to remain neutral at the beginning of the war, but unlike other counties, it continued to dither between support for the parliamentarians and support for the king throughout the war. It ultimately paid the price when pro-king forces sacked Leicester town. If the town had been more forceful in supporting parliament, its defences would have been better able to withstand the royalist attack. On the other hand, if it had consistently supported the king, it wouldn’t have been sacked by royalist forces in the first place.

Northamptonshire and the Civil War

Northampton town, from the outset, was decisively on the side of parliament. Within months of the beginning of the war, it had the most powerful garrison in the South Midlands. Although the majority of the inhabitants were not puritans, the more puritanical among them managed to secure leading positions in the corporation and on the county committee, and the pulpit in the Northampton’s great cathedral became a powerful weapon of propaganda.

Local Leadership in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire

Why were these two provincial towns and counties so different in their response to the Great Rebellion?

Everitt says that Northampton had "that interesting mixture of holiness and hard-headedness" associated with puritanism. The town benefited greatly from an order for thousands of pairs of shoes for the fighting men, and its renowned horse-trade was also stimulated by the demands of the army.

However, while economic advantage was a contributing factor in the different responses of the two counties, Everitt argues that the ultimate explanation for the difference was partly due to the quality of leadership, and partly to inherent dissimilarities in their social structure.

Leicestershire leadership had for years been divided between two evenly-balanced rivals. The fact that one was pro-king and the other pro-parliament was not at the root of the rivalry; the two families had been embroiled in personal feuds long before the war.

During the civil war, other leading families in Leicestershire fell in behind the two rival families, causing the divided parties to become remarkably evenly balanced between pro-king and pro-parliament. This even division had far-reaching consequences:

It explains why the struggle for control was so indecisive;

Leicester corporation was reluctant to support either family for fear of antagonising the other;

The people of Leicestershire were so absorbed with these local issues and defending their own patch that they had little concern for wider issues;

Very few local people left the county to join either the king’s army or the parliamentary armies.

Like Leicestershire, at the beginning of the war, Northampton leadership was also divided between pro-king and pro-parliament, but in a short time the parliamentarians secured the county town and most of the shire.

This success was mainly due to the fact that the most powerful pro-king families left the county to join the king’s army 40 miles away at Oxford. Northamptonshire royalists made little effort to challenge the dominance of the parliamentarian county committee, or to engage in local raiding or plundering.

Pattern of Society in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire

Underlying the quality of leadership, there were deeper differences in the social structure of the two counties.

In Leicestershire, as in other counties, there was a marked tendency for the older families to support the king, and the newer gentry to side with parliament. More than half of the pro-king gentry had been settled in Leicestershire for over 150 years. The origins of the pro-parliamentarians are less easy to trace because many came of mercantile or yeoman stock and did not have a lengthy lineage in the county.

In Northamptonshire, the picture was very different. It had undergone a huge social change in the Tudor and Stuart period, when hundreds of new families arrived. Through trade, the law, office under the crown, or marrying the right heiresses they quickly joined the ranks of old gentry and built splendid mansions in the county.

Why was it possible for so many newcomers, some of them very wealthy before they came, to settle in Northamptonshire?

The open fields areas gave adventurers scope for enclose and for investment in sheep and corn-farming.

Large tracts of royal forest were granted to favourites or disposed of to ambitious merchants.

By 1640 a new, wealthy and able gentry had come into existence in Northamptonshire, strongly parliamentarian, with few links as yet with the older, royalist gentry. They formed the background of county society and some moved into the county town, combining urban puritanism with landed authoritarianism.

Texture of Provincial Life

The lives of most provincial people were not polarised around the ideals of king or parliament, but rather around local rivalries and loyalties, and the common facts of daily life.

Few political actions in the 17^th century could be determined by unfettered idealism or abstract principle alone. Every loyalty was shaped, not so much by a fiat of government as by the whole network of local society: personal influence, family connections, ancient amity, local pride, religious sentiment, economic necessity and many other influences.

Everitt contends that the impact of the Civil war on the provinces may have been exaggerated. Quite as decisive in the economic and religious development of Northampton in the 17^th century were the effects of harvest failure, disease and fire. In 1605, more than 600 died of plague, and in 1638 700 died. Four-fifths of the town was destroyed by fire in 1675.

During the century, every fourth harvest fell short of requirements. There were ten harvest failures during the civil war and commonwealth periods. The annual harvest yield, Everitt says "was the common talk of every market town, far more than the affairs of state".

He suggests that the stubbornness and resilience of country people in the face of alternative good harvests and bad were factors in the ultimate failure of both king and parliament.

"If you have been engaged for centuries in hand-to-hand warfare with the forces of nature, you naturally develop a certain dumb obstinacy towards the world at large – and not least towards the strange doings of princes and protectors."

Pattern of Society in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire

Underlying the quality of leadership, there were deeper differences in the social structure of the two counties.

Why was it possible for so many newcomers, some of them very wealthy before they came, to settle in Northamptonshire?

The open fields areas gave adventurers scope for enclosure and for investment in sheep and corn-farming.

Large tracts of royal forest were granted to favourites or disposed of to ambitious merchants.

Texture of Provincial Life

The lives of most provincial people were not polarised around the ideals of king or parliament, but rather around local rivalries and loyalties, and the common facts of daily life.

Everitt contends that the impact of the civil war on the provinces may have been exaggerated. Quite as decisive in the economic and religious development of Northampton in the 17^th century were the effects of harvest failure, disease and fire. In 1605, more than 600 died of plague, and in 1638, 700 died. Four-fifths of the town was destroyed by fire in 1675.

He suggests that the stubbornness and resilience of country people in the face of alternative good harvests and bad were factors in the ultimate failure of both king and parliament.

Máire Ní Chearbhaill

13 March 2001