A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



it if he could, which I thinke he did, for I never saw him since. The 

 deponent knew not any person engaged in that commotion. He heard from 

 that Curtis that Sir Henry Felton and Sir Ralph Skipwith ^ were forward 

 men in the king's service there, but he knowes neyther of them. There is 

 one Mr. Cot in Yarmouth, a great confident of Colonell Blake's for deUvery 

 of that towne.' ' Further on the deponent goes on to state that ' Curtis, 

 Colonell Blague's (Blake's) man, told mee upon the last rising in Norfolke 

 there would fifteen hundred foote and fifteen hundred horse appeare, which 

 were in readiness, and that they had one hundred barrells of powder, and 

 much money att command, and that he receaved this information from 

 Captaine Kitchinman, who was an actor therein. I never heard of one 

 hundred men that appeared there yet. . . . When Blague came over with 

 mee, he brought blanke commissions under the king's great scale for sheriffs 

 of those two counties of Suffolk and Norfolke, but how hee disposed of them 

 I cannott tell. He spoke of Sir Henry Felton for SufiFolke and one Mr. Paston 

 for Norfolke if he could get them to accept the same. But whether they 

 did or no I cannott tell.' ^ 



The Long Parliament was turned out in 1652, and the next year Crom- 

 well ordered that the county of Norfolk should send ten members, Norwich, 

 Lynn, and Yarmouth two each, and disfranchised Thetford and Rising, though 

 giving their inhabitants votes for the county.* 



Risings being threatened in 1654, a local Norwich company of volunteers 

 120 in number, were enlisted to be ready at any warning, but it does not 

 appear that they were ever called out.^ 



In 1656 ten members were sent to Parliament from Norfolk, but five of 

 them, namely Sir Ralph Hare, Sir William D'Oyly, Philip Wodehouse, 

 John Buxton, and Thomas Sotherton were among the 161 members who were 

 refused entrance to the House because they had not certificates that they had 

 been approved by Cromwell's council. A member was bold enough to move 

 a protest against this outrageous breach of the constitution, but {the 161 not 

 being allowed to vote) it was lost by 29 to 125. 



When, on the death of Oliver and the supersession of Richard Cromwell, 

 the way was opened for the restoration of Charles, probably few cities were 

 more glad to welcome back the Stuarts than Norwich. Curiously enough it 

 appears that there was a very good chance of Charles II landing in Norfolk 

 instead of at Dover, for when Hyde was writing to Mordaunt on 3 May, 1659, 

 it was clearly in his mind that Charles might land in Norfolk. He says : 

 ' I should be glad to hear from you, that, in either of the cases I have putt, 

 or any other that is like to fall out. Sir Horatio Townshend would be able 

 to make any notable appearance in Norfolk, which you know lies best for our 

 landing.' ' Mordaunt on 27 May, says : ' We humbly leave to your con- 

 siderations where you will land ; and whether in one body or two ; in Kent, or 

 Norfolk, or more westward.' ^ The History of the Rebel/ion^ also mentions a 

 plot set on foot by Lord Willoughby of Parham and Sir Horatio Townshend 



' He had been concerned in Charles I's escape in 1646 and is several times mentioned in the examination 

 of Michael Hudson. 



' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 578. ' Ibid. 580. 



* Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 400. ' Ibid. 



' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x, App. vi, 196. ' Ibid. 201. 



' Clarendon, op. cit. (ed. Macray, 1888), vi, 1 1 1. 



