A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



as at Leicester,*^ may not have involved any real 

 injustice or caused any serious discontent in the 

 15th and l6th centuries. In the course of the 17th 

 and 1 8th centuries, however, the situation was com- 

 pletely transformed, and this was due as much to 

 poUtical as to social developments. Northampton 

 has been called the Mecca of English Nonconformists, 

 and, less kindly, ' a nest of Puritans — malignant, 

 refractory spirits who disturb the peace of the 

 church.' ^^ From the time when the students and 

 ' bachelery ' of Northampton supported Simon de 

 Montfort against the King and the prior to the time 

 when the borough persisted in re-electing Charles 

 Bradlaugh, in the face of a House of Commons 

 zealous for the conventions of religion, there is a 

 recurring tradition of defiance of authority. The 

 Lollardry of the 14th, and the prophesyings of the 

 l6th century, the dissemination of Penry's Marprelate 

 Tracts, stitched, if not printed, in Northampton ; 

 the obstinate resistance to Laudian reform in the 

 17th century,^* are followed by the militant puri- 

 tanism of the civil wars and the last stand of the 

 Leveller Thompson ; ** the pioneer activities of Inde- 

 pendent, Baptist, Quaker, Moravian and Wesleyan 

 congregations, with their meeting houses at Castle 

 Hill and College Lane, Doddridge's Academy and 

 Ryland's School ; *^ the iconoclastic free-thought of 

 Thomas Woolston and Charles Bradlaugh ; and the 

 radicalism of Chartists like Gammage. The conser- 

 vative influences come from the county ; it was not 

 a Northampton parson who preached the doctrine 

 of ' ApostoUc obedience ' to the justices of Assize 

 at All Saints' in 1632 so comprehensively that the 

 Archbishop refused to license the pubUcation of the 

 sermon. In view of the proverbial relationship of 

 cobbhng and politics, it is interesting to notice that 

 during these same centuries Northampton comes to 

 take the first place in the shoemaking industry of 

 England. 



The irresolution of mayor and corporation as to 

 their attitude on Elizabeth's death is vividly thrown 

 up in Sir Thomas Tresham's account of his ride to 

 Northampton in March 1603, and his threefold 

 proclamation of James I (regarded as a potential 

 patron of Papists) outside the south gate, on the 

 steps of the mayor's house, and in the mayor's own 

 chamber.'* After these initial hesitations the town 

 maintained the forms of loyalty in frequent welcomes 

 to the first two Stuarts on their journeys through 

 Northampton to or from Holdenby House," but from 

 1632 overt acts of the corporation betray a growing 

 opposition to royal policy. Troops were refused in 

 that year,'* shipmoney in 1636,"' and the fees of the 

 king's messengers were reduced in 1640.** In March 

 1641 the Assembly resolved to complain to Parha- 

 ment of the renewed attempts to exact coat and 



conduct money from the town, and to take the trained 

 band? out of the hberties." In January 1642 a peti- 

 tion, signed at the Swan Inn, Northampton, against 

 Papists and Bishops went up to the Commons.'* 

 From the outbreak of hostihties Northampton became 

 one of the more important Parliamentary garrison 

 towns, and the town government used every effort 

 to strengthen it. Nicholas Wharton, one of the 

 London volunteers in Essex' army, who entered the 

 town in August 1642, describes the walls as ' miser- 

 ably ruined, though the country abounds in mines of 

 stones ' ; *^ the town, with the assistance at first of the 

 Earl of Manchester and later of the Parliamentary 

 committee for the town and county set to work 

 to organise the defences.'* The assembly voted 

 ;^ioo in 1642 and another j^i6o in 1643, for improving 

 the fortifications ; a scheme for the provision of 

 labour by the five wards in rotation on the first five 

 days of the week was worked out.*' Stores were laid 

 up against a possible siege ; the south and west 

 bridges were turned into drawbridges,'* and out- 

 lying houses in St. Edmund's end pulled down to make 

 the east gate safer." Besides occupying the castle, 

 the troops were billeted on the townsmen, who further 

 helped the forces by supplying 2,000 pairs of shoes 

 to Cromwell's army.** From Northampton Fairfax 

 marched out to Naseby in 1645, and after the battle 

 the Northampton churches received the living as 

 prisoners, and their churchyards the dead.*^ The 

 Commonwealth reduced the parhamentary repre- 

 sentation of the borough to one member, and it is 

 possible that the town shared the dislike of the county 

 for the government of Major-General Boteler," 

 though it does not seem to have joined in the county's 

 Humble Address to General Monk on liis arrival 

 at Northampton on 24 January 1660.'' Be that as it 

 may, on 10 May 1660 Charles II was proclaimed 

 ' by our Mayor and Aldermen in their scarlett, and 

 the bayUflfs and Forty- Eight burgesses in all their 

 formalities, with a troop of Horse and three Com- 

 panies of Foot, and Drums, Trumpets and the Town 

 waitse.''^ In spite of this show of loyalty, the cor- 

 poration was drastically purged by the commissioners 

 appointed under the Corporation .\ct of 1662. In 

 September of that year, wliilst the town-walls were 

 being demolished under the supervision of the Lord 

 Lieutenant, the mayor-elect, the bailiffs-elect, 8 

 aldermen, 14 ex-bailiffs and 32 of the Forty Eight 

 were turned out,'* and the town had to pay £200 

 for the renewal of its cliarter,'* which was accompanied 

 by the proviso that the appointments of recorder 

 and town clerk were to be confirmed by the king, 

 and tliat all the officials must take the oaths of allegi- 

 ance and supremacy.'-' In 1672 there wa*; some talk 

 of a quo warranto against the town for the refusal 

 to re-elect Peterborough as recorder,'* and though the 



*' Bateion, Rfc. lioro. of Letci. ii, liv. 



•■ Cat. S. P. Dom. 1638-9^ p. 588 (llum- 

 phrry Ramidcn to .Sir John Lambc). 



•■ y.C.U. Northantt. ii, 29, 43, 68 ff. 



•• Gardiner, Commonweallh and Protec- 

 lorali, i, 54 ; l.tc, Coll, p. 105. Note alio 

 the earlier I.evellen of 1607, who oppoied 

 the cncloiurei. Serjeantion, Hill, of Ch. 

 af All Samtt^ pp. 149-50. 



" V.C.II. Norlhanu. ii, 6S-74 



•• Hill. MSS. Com. Rep. Var. Coll. iii, 

 I17-H3. 



" Boro. Rtc. ii, 469-71. 



•• Cat. S. P. Dom. 163 1-3, p. 278. 



'• lloro. Rec. ii, 435. 



" Iliid. ii, 33. 



*' Ibid, ii, 437. For the town tr,tined 

 bands see ibid, ii, 444-453, and Acts of 

 the Prtty Council 1595, p. 392. 



•> Cal. S. P. Dom. 1 64 1-3, p. 279. 



•> Ibid. p. 385. 



" Itiit. MSS. Com. Rrp. viii, app. 2, 

 P- '.') 



" lloro. Rec. ii, 438-9. 



" Rridgci, Uitt. of Noribanli. i, 431. 

 (from T. Duit). 



12 



•' I.ec, Coll. p. 99. 



" Cal. S. P. Dom. 1644, p. 285. 



" R. M. Serjenntson, /list. Cb. of All 

 Saint!, Northampl. p. 152. 



" Lee, Coll. p. 109. 



" Broadsheet, d.ited 24 J.m. 1659, 

 * The Humble Addrcs* of the Gentlemen, 

 Ministers and freeholders of the county of 

 Northampton.' 



" Lee, Coll. p. III. 



'•Ibid. 113. "Ibid. 



" Cal. S. P. Dom. 1663-4, p. 223. 



'* Hill. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, app. 7, p. 9!. 



