A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



a close preserve for them or their nominees until it was extinguished by the 

 Act of 1832.^ 



A striking example of the lawlessness of the period occurred in 1775, 

 when the Norwich coach was ' held up ' in Epping Forest by seven 

 highwaymen, and the guard was shot after he had killed three of his 

 opponents. 



'Coke of Holkham ' in 1780' presented a petition praying the House 

 to guard against unnecessary expenditure, to abolish sinecure places and 

 pensions, and to resist the increasing influence of the crown. In the election 

 of the year Astley and Coke at last came together at the head of the poll. 

 Coke beating Grey by six votes only, Wodehouse being last. 



The election of 1784 was a triangular duel between Astley, Coke, and 

 Wodehouse. Coke was in this election severely lampooned and attacked for 

 certain game prosecutions and actions for trespass which he had brought, 

 and there is no doubt that his overbearing ways and fondness for game 

 preservation did him more harm at the poll than all his services to agriculture 

 did him good. He must have lost many votes, too, by the accusation that 

 he had sold his party for a peerage, or as the election ballad put it : 



Your countenance told us, 

 For a peerage you sold us. 



Ultimately, finding his case hopeless, he wisely withdrew, apparently 

 taking a very despondent view of the position of the Whig party, saying. 



While I lament the loss of your confidence as it affects myself, I feel a more serious 

 concern for the consequences of that loss to the Whig interest, which my family was in 

 this county brought forward to support in the year 1768, and which now seems threatened 

 with a total overthrow by the machinations of its enemies and by the temporary prejudices 

 of many who should be its supporters.' 



He was, in spite of his forebodings, re-elected in 1790, and continued a 

 member till the Reform Bill of 1832, forty years in all, becoming the father 

 of the House. 



The French Revolution at first greatly excited the quasi-revolutionist 

 party in Norwich. Banquets were given at the ' Maid's Head ' and else- 

 where, and the ' Rights of Man,' the ' Philosophers of France,' &c., were 

 toasted. But the atrocities of the Revolution soon caused a great revulsion 

 of feeling in the more thinking classes, and by 1792 pledges were freely and 

 publicly entered into by many to support the constitution of King, Lords, 

 and Commons. A great deal of inflammatory placarding and excitement to 

 revolt was kept up for some time by local ' Simon Tappertits', and, indeed, 



' How this place ever came to return members is a mystery. It first sent members 5 January, 1557, 

 but there was never any trade or population to justify a single member. There was 'never a grant of a 

 borough or of any municipal rights there.' Mr. Beloc (Nor/. J re A. x'n, 185) says that in 1642 and 1649 

 there were only twenty-five burgesses, and that the burgess tenements had been bought up partly by the 

 Howards, partly by the Cholmondeleys of Houghton ; a few remain in the family of Howard of 

 Westacre. But the whole thing was a perfect farce, the Howards electing one member and the Walpoles 

 the other. 



' ' Coke of Holkham,' who ' gloried in the reputation of being the first commoner in England,' was by 

 birth a Roberts, being the son of Wenham Roberts, who changed his name to Coke on succeeding to the Coke 

 estates in 1 759. The services he rendered to Norfolk agriculture can hardly be overestimated, for though 

 he did not, as is generally said, introduce the turnip, he very thoroughly exploited it. A full account of 

 his work will be found in the Trans. Roy. j4gric. Soc. (3rd ser.), vi, 1-14. 



* Mason, op. cit. 454. 



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