WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



LIVERPOOL 



freeman the oaths hitherto required only from coun- 

 cillors, and thus rendering possible a further purifica- 

 tion of the burgess body, still predominantly Whig. 



Under the terms of this charter, the deputy-mayor 

 and the senior alderman (both Tories) were removed"' 

 by the Crown for persisting in prosecuting two Catho- 

 lics, a surgeon and a schoolmistress, for pursuing their 

 professions, in spite of a licence issued by the Crown. 

 This indicates that in Liverpool, as elsewhere, the 

 loyalty of the Tories to the Crown was limited by 

 their loyalty to the Church. Tory as it was, the 

 council never willingly accepted this charter, which 

 indeed would appear never to have had legal force.*™ 

 The increasing restiveness of the council is still more 

 clearly shown in the answer given *^' to commissioners 

 who were in 1687 sent round to obtain promises of 

 aid in securing a Parliament favourable to the repeal 

 of the Test Act. The mayor answered ' that what is 

 required by his Majesty is a very weighty and new 

 thing ; and that he was not prepared to give any 

 answer but this : when it shall please the King to call 

 a new Parliament, he proposed to vote for such per- 

 sons as he hoped would serve the just interests both of 

 his Majesty and the nation.' Only ' four or five 

 customs officers ' were ready to promise their votes.™ 



The borough as a whole was thus ready to wel- 

 come, and even the ruling oligarchy was ready to 

 accept, the Revolution. A small force of royal troops 

 were for a time in Liverpool,™' and Lord Molyneux, 

 Constable of the castle, took a vigorous part for 

 James as Lord Lieutenant of the county ; *'" but the 

 attitude of Lord Derby, who, Tory as he was, after 

 some wavering, threw himself on the side of the 

 Prince of Orange,'"' had more to do with determin- 

 ing the attitude of the town ; and one of the things 

 he protested against was the 'extravagant methods 

 practised by the new magistrates in the ancient loyal 

 corporations ' of Wigan, Liverpool, and Preston, into 

 which he urged that inquiry should be made.'"' 

 Though some of the townsmen made some difficulty 

 about accepting the oaths to the new monarchs,'"' on 

 the whole the Revolution was most enthusiastically 

 received in Liverpool ; and during 1689 the port 

 was very actively employed in the transport of troops 

 for the Irish campaign,"' General Kirke being for a 

 time in command in the town,"" while Schomberg 

 passed through it '"' on his way to embark at Hoy- 

 lake. So great was the demand for shipping that the 

 merchants complained that they were being ruined.'"' 



The Revolution brought about a temporary recon- 

 ciliation between the two parties in the town. Not 

 only the Tory magistrates removed by the Crown,"" 

 but some of the Whigs who had declined the oaths 

 in 1678,'" returned to the council. The charter of 

 James II was dropped by common consent, if it had 



ever come into force, and in 1 690 an inspeximus and 

 confirmation '" of the charter of Charles II was 

 obtained from William and Mary. In the first 

 Parliament of the Revolution Liverpool was repre- 

 sented '" by Lord Colchester, son-in-law of Lord 

 Derby and a sound Tory, and by Thomas Norris, a 

 strong Whig. 



But it was inevitable that the Whigs, in a majority 

 in the burgess-body, should desire power in the town 

 government, and the reconciliation did not last long. 

 In 1694, Lord Colchester being called up to the 

 House of Peers, a Whig was elected in his place by 

 400 votes against 15 cast for his Tory opponent,"* 

 in spite of the support given by Lord Derby to the 

 latter. The Tory mayor went so far as to declare the 

 defeated candidate elected,"' for which he was repri- 

 manded by the House of Commons. This election 

 was regarded as a triumph for the party which was 

 anxious to overturn the charter of Charles II ; and 

 the two members, Jasper Maudit and Thomas Norris, 

 worked actively "* to obtain a new charter. The 

 Town Council voted funds for the defence of the 

 Charles II charter,"' and appealed to Roger Kenyon, 

 member for Clitheroe, and to Lord Derby, to fight 

 their case for them at Westminster."* In 1605, 

 however, a new charter "' was granted, which first 

 declared the Charles II charter invalid on the grounds 

 already noted, then recited and confirmed the Charles I 

 charter, and went on to reduce the number of the 

 Town Council to forty. This charter remained the 

 governing charter of the borough until 1835. ^^^ 

 general principle (in consonance with the conservative 

 character of the whole revolution of which it was a 

 part) was to restore the system of government as it 

 was supposed to have been before the recent changes. 

 But it was badly drafted ; and left open several vital 

 questions over which there was much discussion dur- 

 ing the next century — notably the question whether 

 it was within the power of the burgess body at its 

 pleasure to override the powers of the Town 

 Council.'™ 



The Whigs were now in power in the council as 

 well as in the assembly ; and though the Tories 

 refused to accept the new charter,'" and the ex- 

 mayor (deposed from the council) refused to yield 

 up the town plate,'^' they were powerless ; and the 

 Whig predominance remained unshaken until the 

 middle of the i8th century. An attempt to obtain 

 the revocation of the William III charter, made by 

 the Tories during the period of Tory ascendancy in 

 national councils in 17 10, was unsuccessful;"' as 

 were also sundry attacks in a different form upon the 

 dominant Whigs, to which we shall have to allude in 

 the next section. The Liverpool members of Parlia- 

 ment during this period were also steadily Whig. 



*" Picton, Liv, Munic. Rec. i, 257. 



498 Against the docquet of the charter 

 are written the words ' never past,' Hist, 

 Munic. Govt, in Liv. 206. In a list of 

 charters in the House of Lords MSS. it 

 is entered with a note '(did not pass),' 

 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. vi, 299. 



499 Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. i, 257-8. 

 6" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. vii, 



206. 



™l Ibid. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 201-2. 

 '"" Ibid. Rep. xii, App. vii, 205 fF. 

 '»8 Ibid. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 198 fF. 

 6»4 Ibid. 198. 

 »"' Ibid. 223. 



S"5 Ibid. Rep. xii, App. vi, 170, 174, 

 175, 183, 187 i App. vii, 237, 244, 248, 

 250. 



6»7 Abbott's Journ. (Chet. Soc. Ixi), i. 



'"8 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. vii, 

 250. 



*''9 Ibid. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 263. 



°l" Picton, Liv, Munic. Rec. i, 260. 



Ml Ibid. 281. 



'1^ Hist. Munic. Govt, in Liv. 233. 



6l» Ret. of Memb. of Pari. ; Norris Papers 

 (Chet. Soc. ix), 21. 



5" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 

 321 ; Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. i, 261. 



"5 Ibid. 



27 



6" Norris Papers (Chet. Soc. ix), 25- 

 30. 



*i? Picton, Liv. Munic. Rec. i, 262. 

 "' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiv, App. iv, 



378- 



'1' Hist. Munic. Govt, in Liv. 1 10-14, 

 and 236 if. 



*™ For an analysis in detail of these 

 points see Hist. Munic. Govt, in Liv. 

 1 10-14. 



*2i Picton, Liv. Munic, Rec. 263-4. 



522 Ibid. 



52s Ibid, ii, 4-7 ; Hist. Munic. Govt, 

 in Liv. 114, 115 i Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. 

 xiv, App. iv, 673. 



Digitized by IVIicrosoft® 



