POLITICAL HISTORY 



Suffolk sent a very large number of their trained bands on this expedition, 

 far more in proportion than other counties. 



To the memorable Long Parliament of 1640 Sir Thomas Wodehouse 

 and Framlingham Gawdy were sent to represent Thetford, their unsuc- 

 cessful opponent being an advanced sectarian, one Tobias Frere. Sir John 

 Holland and Sir Edmund Moundeford were the members for the county 

 (the former afterwards making place for John Potts, esq., and taking his 

 seat for Castle Rising, where his colleague was Sir Christopher Hatton, after- 

 wards replaced by Sir Robert Hatton). For the city of Norwich Richard 

 Harman and Richard Cateline were the members. Framlingham Gawdy 

 took careful notes of the proceedings, which are of very considerable 

 interest. 



The friction was increasing daily. On 3 September, 1640, the king's 

 commission of array for Norfolk was prepared, which was afterwards de- 

 nounced by Parliament, when in 1642' it sent down most of the Norfolk 

 members to the county as a committee to suppress the commission.*' The 

 letter of directions to the committee boldly stated that it was to be feared 

 that the king intended to make war against the Parliament, and that under 

 colour of raising a guard for his person the inhabitants of Norfolk might be 

 brought together. Sir Robert de Grey was the only prominent person who 

 stood up for the commission. 



The Parliament was in touch with the bailiffs of Yarmouth and ordered 

 them, in March, 1641, to watch for suspicious persons coming from beyond 

 the seas and to intercept all letters, &c., and in April, 1642, a similar motion 

 was made as to Lynn, which was seconded by no less a person than Oliver 

 Cromwell. It was in March, 1642, that the king definitely refused the 

 demands pressed upon him, and, when the Parliament's commissioners at 

 Newmarket again pressed him that the militia might be embodied as asked 

 for by the Parliament, he ' swore by God that it should not be so for 

 a single hour.' There were soon two proclamations issued, one by Parlia- 

 ment directing the militia to be put in training, the other by the king 

 forbidding it. 



All the summer of i 642 both parties were quietly making preparations 

 for the inevitable struggle. By August Cromwell, himself a Norfolk man 

 by descent on his mother's side, had seized the magazine at Cambridge and 

 intercepted most of the college plate which the university had loyally granted 

 to the king. 



In July, 1642, a Captain Moses Treswell came to Norwich with a 

 commission on behalf of the king to raise 100 volunteers to go to Newark, 

 but on beating of his enlistment drums against the orders of the city, he 

 was committed to prison and sent up to London.* 



' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 382. ' Lords^ Journals, v, 252. 



' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 38 1. There are a number of curious minutes in the Common Council book 

 of the Norwich corporation referring to this incident. The first, dated 29 July, 1642, states : 'This day 

 Captain Moses Treswell brought a commission under the hand and seal of the earl of Lynsey for the levying 

 of a hundred men and volunteers and conducting them to Newark-upon-Trent. He is required that he 

 might beat up to drum. It was with one gen'all consent agreed that he should not at all beat to any drum 

 and so he was required.' On 30 July : ' Mr. Mayor did give order for the writing of a letter to the earl of 

 Lynsey,' but what the letter contained, or the subject to which it had reference, is not mentioned. On the 

 same date it is recorded that : ' Samuel Vonte did acknowledge that he hath a bag of money scaled up for 

 Captayne Treswell, and his chamberlain said that there was likewise a cloak, bag, and a scarlet coat, and a 



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