TY - JOUR
AU - Craven, Alex
AB - Abstract On 2 January 1650, the Act for subscribing the Engagement was passed. By this, the English republic's oath of loyalty was extended to ‘all men whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England, of the age of eighteen years and upwards’. Although the controversy surrounding the Engagement has been much studied, the administration of the oath has drawn little attention. This is not surprising given that very few returns survived the 1661 order for their destruction. Yet, among these scanty records, there survive two separate sets of returns for Lancashire: the first was collected between June 1650 and April 1651 at Blackburn, Bury, Heywood, Middleton, Preston and Wigan; the second was compiled at Manchester between February and December 1651, and has been previously unnoticed by historians. These two documents provide valuable evidence of the government apparatus by which the oath was administered, and of the kind of people who took it. The returns enhance our understanding of the motivation for taking the Engagement, and measure commitment to the new regime. On 2 January 1650, the Act for subscribing the Engagement was passed, imposing the English republic's oath of loyalty upon ‘all men whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England, of the age of eighteen years and upwards’.1 This was the culmination of a process that had previously seen it extended first, in February 1649, solely to the new councillors of state, and then, on 11 October 1649, to all M.P.s, soldiers, lawyers, ministers and office-holders in the country, including members of county committees and town governments and manorial court officials.2 The content of the Engagement was highly controversial, and potentially divisive, requiring engagers to swear: ‘I Do declare and promise, That I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as it is now Established, without a King or House of Lords’.3 The preamble to the act stated that the purpose of the oath was ‘for the better uniting of this Nation, as well against all Invasions from abroad, as the Common Enemy at home’. It expressed the concern that ‘divers dis-affected persons, do by sundry ways and means oppose and endeavour to undermine the Peace of the Nation under this present Government, so that unless special care be taken, a new War is likely to break forth’. It presented the question of allegiance in contractual terms, seeking to acquire from ‘those which receive benefit and protection from this present Government’ the ‘assurance of their living quietly and peaceably under the same’.4 However, despite the desire to ‘better unite’ the nation, the Engagement in fact offered a great opportunity for opponents of the new regime to attack the Commonwealth. As Sarah Barber points out, ‘by forcing the people to make a statement of their loyalty, the government ran the risk that it would encourage people to think through and articulate their objections’.5 Although the controversy surrounding the Engagement has been much studied, the administration of the oath has drawn little attention.6 This is not surprising given that very few returns survived the 1661 order for their destruction.7 Yet, among these scanty records, there survive two separate sets of returns for Lancashire, collected between June 1650 and November 1651.8 The first of these consists of a single roll of signatures collected between June 1650 and April 1651, variously at Blackburn, Bury, Heywood, Middleton, Preston and Wigan.9 The second set of returns, compiled on two rolls of parchment signed at Manchester between February 1651 and December 1651, has been previously unnoticed by historians.10 These two documents provide valuable evidence of the government apparatus by which the oath was administered, and of the kind of people who took it, thereby enhancing our understanding of the motivation for taking the Engagement, and providing some measure of commitment to the new regime. However, before turning to a detailed analysis of these returns, it is necessary to consider the context within which they were created. The extension of the Engagement to the rest of the nation exacerbated the already virulent pamphlet debate concerning the legitimacy of the new republic. The controversy clearly left many feeling bewildered or frustrated. Adam Martindale, the Lancastrian minister of Rostherne in northern Cheshire, concluded that ‘much of that sort of papers was spent in a charge of usurpation upon the governors by one parties, and warding it off by another, which signified little to me, who was satisfied of the usurpation, but doubted whether … the engagement was unlawfull’.11 Many of those who wrote in favour of the Commonwealth enjoined loyalty to the new regime from a de facto position, arguing that the people should obey the government in power, regardless of its source of authority. Thomas Hobbes and Anthony Ascham both rode roughshod over any considerations of legitimacy, arguing that only those governments that were in a position to provide protection and prosperity had any right to rule. Francis Rous, a Cornish M.P., argued that the words of St. Paul in Romans XIII required obedience even under tyrants, while John Dury justified loyalty to the new regime through the manifest workings of God's providence. Of course, these statements and positions presented an open target to their opponents. Royalists were quick to point out the hypocrisy inherent in arguments to obey blindly even tyrannical governments made by men who had revolted against Charles I and overturned the previous regime.12 Examples in the Bible of God's toleration of tyrants equally refuted any idea that the Commonwealth's very existence demonstrated His approval.13 Yet, as Martindale lamented, none of these arguments really engaged with the issue that concerned many of his neighbours within Lancashire, that is, whether they were in a position legally to swear the Engagement. It was the issue of previous oaths that caused the greatest resistance to the Engagement. Many of parliament's supporters had taken the Solemn League and Covenant, thereby swearing to protect the person of the king and the institution of monarchy. They feared that, by taking the Engagement, they would be breaking their previous oaths.14 Even supporters of the Commonwealth like John Dury interpreted the Engagement with some equivocation.15 The anonymous author of the pamphlet Certain Particulars sought to dispel the concerns of those who had taken earlier oaths. The term ‘Commonwealth’ was deployed in its broadest possible sense, to mean ‘the publicke Affairs and welfare of the place where his lot is cast to inhabite’. The proviso ‘as it is now established’ was also demonstrated to be a salve for those with tender consciences, ensuring that the oath contained neither an element of approval for the revolution nor an assertion of the republican form of government for the future.16 It was arguments such as these that the Presbyterian ministers of Lancashire, in particular, confronted head on. In that county, Edward Gee, the minister of Eccleston, was one of those who led the verbal tirade against the Engagement, and he has been called ‘one of the ablest political writers of the interregnum’.17 Bound by the Covenant to protect the king, the Presbyterian ministers of the north-west had never approved of the new regime, and poured scorn upon it from their pulpits and in print. Richard Bradshaw, the Chester alderman, elaborated on this problem when he wrote to Lord President John Bradshaw in March 1650: The reason of the people's backwardness is chiefly the frequent deterring arguments from pulpits, whence the rigid Presbyterians shake the minds of men, setting the engagement directly in opposition to the covenant, charging covenant breaking and perjury upon all that have subscribed, and labouring to render them odious to the people; yet all is woven so cunningly that the thread appears not wherewith to bind up such zealots. I have questioned some, and their answer is, that they, by authority of Parliament, pressed the covenant upon their people; and now, being persuaded that the present engagement clashes with it, they are bound to warn the people of their danger. Bradshaw was concerned about the conduct of the ministers, fearing that if ‘some speedy course be not taken to restrain them, in this county and Lancashire, the prejudice may be great’.18 The Engagement crisis prompted Presbyterians in the north-west to work together in opposition to the new test of loyalty.19 Ministers from Lancashire and Cheshire met at Warrington to discuss the oath and how they should react.20 The result of this meeting was A Plea for Non-Scribers, ‘a collective statement for the ministers of Cheshire, Lancashire and “the parts adjoining”’.21 The Plea, probably written by Gee, flatly stated that the Engagement ‘comes … in way of Competition with, and opposition to, antecedent religious oathes, Vowes and Protestations’ and so could not be subscribed.22 The Plea also turned the tables on the Independents, arguing that the Engagement contradicted the very calls for liberty of conscience that they had been demanding from the Presbyterians for years. As it was impossible for Presbyterians to subscribe the new oath with a good conscience, the Plea called for them to be allowed the same liberty that the Independents had sought: ‘Conscience hath beene of late a tender Darling in some mens brests … Conscience is our present Plea.’23 That this was such a weighty matter of conscience was made plain by the Plea; the wording was too precise to be ‘only a vague sort of commitment, involving little more than a promise to be peaceful’: By the matter Engaged in those words, I will bee true and faithfull, wee thinke is intended not a meere negative, or a quiet succumbency or cessation, as thus, I will doe nothing against that Government, but a positive Devotedness; that is, an obeying of their Commands, an acting cordially and dilligently under and for them … against all opposites and competitors, those especially by name excluded, The King and House of Lords …24 In response to their opposition to the Engagement, Marchamont Nedham's government mouthpiece, Mercurius Politicus, rained down colourful opprobrium upon the Lancashire clergy. In June 1650, he bewailed ‘the Barking and Bleating of the bold Pharisees’ of Lancashire and Cheshire ‘who have lifted themselves in Print under the notion of Non-subscribers, and brought Arguments, suitable to their malice, against the present Government’, accusing them of making ‘a Scar [sic] crow of the Covenant, to fright the people’. Later that month, he bemoaned ‘the blew Pharisees, whose queasie Consciences can more easily down with three or four Steeples upon the Scotish Accompt, than one Engagement upon the English’.25 Many of the Lancashire Presbyterian ministers refused to swear the Engagement, despite the possible penalties with which this threatened them. One who suffered financial loss for a tender conscience was Isaac Ambrose, the vicar of Preston. In an elegant petition to the county sequestration commissioners, he complained that he was ‘left destitute of Subsistence and present livelihood’ because the government augmentation of his income had been detained for his refusal to swear the Engagement. Ambrose protested that ‘as in God's presence that (soe far as he knows anything of his owne breast) it is not of stubbornesse or peevishnesse of spirit or any ends of his owne, but purely and mearly out of Conscience’ that he could not take the oath. He complained that ‘it lyes heavy on his soul to heare those invectives usually cast on Ministers that they should be actors and abettors of state differences and controversyes and therefore he should thinke it as his dutye soe his happiness if by any meanes in his place hee knew how to compose the differences in Church or State’. He went on to promise: That he will not anywayes betray or disturbe the publicke welfare but doe all dutyes (as God shall inable him) which relate to the Commonwealth and safety of all and that he will submit to the powers over him requiring good and lawful things and that in such case he will not dispense with matters of dutye in themselves commendable and profitable to common edification because of any wordly aspects. Ambrose hoped that ‘if this be the whole, direct and playne matter and end of the ingagement (as some writing for it doe confidently averre) … [then] this may satisfye without any further pressing of the lettre of it’. He concluded by reminding the commissioners of ‘that golden axiome’, that ‘Moderate councells conduce much more to an happy settlement then such as are high and rigid’. Ambrose's efforts were to prove fruitless on this occasion. Despite the commissioners' acknowledgement that they ‘doe verily believe the contents to bee true’, nevertheless they could not allow the augmentation without his first subscribing the Engagement.26 Others who suffered included John Angier of Denton, who claimed that he had lost £200 a year for refusing the oath; and the augmentation of John Tilsley of Deane was withheld when he would not take the Engagement.27 Robert Constantine, minister at Oldham, was deprived of his place for refusing to engage, having been called before the council to answer for his seditious preaching.28 However, not all Lancashire ministers were able to resist the Engagement outright. Henry Newcome took the oath, while John Fogg of Liverpool submitted to it to regain his position there, having previously been ejected in June 1651 for refusing it.29 The augmentation granted to the Independent Thomas Jollie of Altham in February 1650 by the committee for plundered ministers was made dependent upon his first swearing the Engagement; as payments are recorded from June 1651, it seems likely that he did indeed take the oath.30 While the Engagement caused disruption and consternation among the ranks of Lancashire's clergy, the declared intention of the 1650 act was to extend the Engagement to ‘all men whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England’. If this were to be successful, the Commonwealth's ability to secure the support of magistrates and committeemen would be crucial. The extent to which their failure to subscribe would seriously restrict how far it could be extended to the populace was demonstrated at nearby Chester. There, Richard Bradshaw complained that, because ‘there is not one justice of peace, mayor, recorder, or other, except Mr Aldersey and myself, that either have taken the engagement or given countenance to them that have; the commonalty, who are chiefly led by the example of their governors, have not yet subscribed’.31 As with the clergy, the Commonwealth's oath of loyalty proved too testing for many of the nation's governors. Throughout the country non-subscribing officials were removed, and the commissions of the peace of a number of counties were remodelled.32 Lancashire was not unusual in this respect, so fifteen of the forty-one J.P.s nominated to the county bench in September 1649 were not included in the next commission of April 1650.33 However, if the Lancashire J.P.s were purged as a result of the Engagement, the county committees were not. The Lancashire assessment committee had been effectively cleared out soon after the revolution, when only eleven of the twenty-six men appointed to the committee in March 1648 were appointed again in April 1649. Following this, the membership of the committee was little affected by the Engagement; of members of the assessment committee appointed in December 1649, all but the recently deceased M.P. Alexander Rigby were reappointed in November 1650.34 Thomas Birch's letter of February 1650 to John Ashe, chairman of the committee of compounding, reported enthusiasm for the oath among the county's militia men: ‘On Tuesday last wee mett about setling the Militia & 19 Lanc[ashire] men [tha]t the Councell of State named Com[missioner]s therein, have subscribed the Engagem[en]t w[i]th Chearefulnes.’35 No accurate list of militia commissioners survives, as the 1650 act did not nominate individuals; however, we can glean the identity of some of them from a variety of sources.36 Twenty men in total signed sixteen orders between 1650 and 1651; to these we can add the name of John Foxe, appointed in September 1650 by the council of state.37 These commissioners included ten J.P.s who survived the purge and were reappointed in April 1650, when three more commissioners were nominated as justices.38 The change of support for the Engagement among Lancashire's magistrates and committeemen would be of much significance for its extension to the rest of the population. We can glean further insight into the attitude of the Lancashire magistracy towards the oath from the Lancashire Engagement rolls. According to the wording of the act, subscriptions of the Engagement were to be collected by ‘Justices of the Peace, Commissioners, for the Monethly Assessments in the several Counties respectively, and all Majors [sic], Bailiffs, and other the chief officers in all cities and Towns Corporate respectively’.39 In total, ten J.P.s witnessed the extant subscriptions of the oath taken in 1650 and 1651, including some of the most assiduous of the county's magistrates during this period.40Table 1 summarizes the data, showing how many times each J.P. witnessed the taking of the Engagement in Lancashire, and comparing this figure to their overall record in office. Table 1. Lancashire J.P.s witnessing the Engagement Name . No. of occasions on which witnessed the oath . No. of quarter sessions attended, 1649–53 . % of quarter sessions attended while in office . Date of first appointment . Peter Holt 9 5 83 1646 John Hartley 9 0 0 1650 John Gilliam 7 6 67? 1651? Robert Cunliffe 4 5 83 1652 James Assheton 3 4 100 1650 Thomas Birch 2 12 75 1647 Richard Haworth 1 9 56 1646 Edmund Hopwood* 1 9 69 1623 Peter Egerton 1 5 50 1646 George Pigot 1 0 0 1650 Name . No. of occasions on which witnessed the oath . No. of quarter sessions attended, 1649–53 . % of quarter sessions attended while in office . Date of first appointment . Peter Holt 9 5 83 1646 John Hartley 9 0 0 1650 John Gilliam 7 6 67? 1651? Robert Cunliffe 4 5 83 1652 James Assheton 3 4 100 1650 Thomas Birch 2 12 75 1647 Richard Haworth 1 9 56 1646 Edmund Hopwood* 1 9 69 1623 Peter Egerton 1 5 50 1646 George Pigot 1 0 0 1650 * Edmund Hopwood was sheriff of Lancashire 1649–50, during which time he was ineligible to serve as a magistrate; this is reflected in the table. Open in new tab Table 1. Lancashire J.P.s witnessing the Engagement Name . No. of occasions on which witnessed the oath . No. of quarter sessions attended, 1649–53 . % of quarter sessions attended while in office . Date of first appointment . Peter Holt 9 5 83 1646 John Hartley 9 0 0 1650 John Gilliam 7 6 67? 1651? Robert Cunliffe 4 5 83 1652 James Assheton 3 4 100 1650 Thomas Birch 2 12 75 1647 Richard Haworth 1 9 56 1646 Edmund Hopwood* 1 9 69 1623 Peter Egerton 1 5 50 1646 George Pigot 1 0 0 1650 Name . No. of occasions on which witnessed the oath . No. of quarter sessions attended, 1649–53 . % of quarter sessions attended while in office . Date of first appointment . Peter Holt 9 5 83 1646 John Hartley 9 0 0 1650 John Gilliam 7 6 67? 1651? Robert Cunliffe 4 5 83 1652 James Assheton 3 4 100 1650 Thomas Birch 2 12 75 1647 Richard Haworth 1 9 56 1646 Edmund Hopwood* 1 9 69 1623 Peter Egerton 1 5 50 1646 George Pigot 1 0 0 1650 * Edmund Hopwood was sheriff of Lancashire 1649–50, during which time he was ineligible to serve as a magistrate; this is reflected in the table. Open in new tab One of the most active magistrates in collecting the extant returns was Peter Holt of Bridge Hall, near Bury, who witnessed the taking of the oath on at least nine occasions.41 He had been a J.P. since 1646, and was named to the assessment committee in 1649. He attended five sittings of the quarter sessions held between October 1649 and his death in August 1651.42 In collecting the oath, Holt travelled to Bury, Heywood, Middleton, Blackburn, Preston and Wigan. Joining Holt at Wigan, Middleton and possibly Bury was James Assheton of Chadderton. Assheton's career as a magistrate was short, lasting a year from his first appointment in April 1650 to his death in April 1651. Nevertheless, he was an enthusiastic magistrate, attending at least the four quarter sessions for which records exist during that period. Despite his late arrival on the bench, Assheton had sat on county committees since 1645.43 His zeal in enforcing the Engagement caused his death to be included among the ‘Twenty Admirable Examples of Gods Severe Iustice and Displeasure against the SUBSCRIBERS of the late ENGAGEMENT’ collected by John Vicars.44 Another magistrate who was highly active on the bench, John Gilliam, witnessed the oath seven times at Manchester. Although there is no extant commission of the peace for Lancashire in 1651, the presence of Gilliam at quarter sessions in early 1652 indicates that he was named in a commission of the previous year. Certainly, in the brief time that he sat on the bench he was an enthusiastic magistrate, attending six sessions between April 1652 and July 1653, despite having been omitted from the commission of March 1653.45 Robert Cunliffe of Sparth witnessed the taking of the Engagement at Blackburn and Preston on four occasions in November 1650, but it is not clear in what capacity he did so.46 Not all of the magistrates involved with the collection of the Engagement were equally diligent. Like Holt, John Hartley of Strangeways witnessed the oath nine times, at Manchester in 1651. However, despite his vigour in administering the Engagement in his home town, the records do not suggest that Hartley was a very active J.P.; he is never recorded as having attended the quarter sessions. He had only been named to the county bench the previous year, following his term as sheriff of the county, and had also been an assessment commissioner since 1649.47 The remaining five magistrates collectively were only present on six occasions when the oath was taken. Nevertheless, they included some of the most senior men active within the county administration during the Commonwealth. Heading this group was Colonel Thomas Birch, who joined Holt twice at Bury in November 1650. Although he had only been a J.P. since 1647, he had been an active committeeman since 1643, and had dominated county affairs from before the creation of the republic.48 Richard Haworth and Peter Egerton had both served as J.P.s since 1646, and were among the more active of magistrates during the republic.49 Edmund Hopwood of Hopwood, who joined Holt in administering the oath at Heywood in June, was one of the county's few Commonwealth J.P.s who had sat for any length of time before the start of the wars, having been first appointed in 1623. He was one of the most active of justices in attending the quarter sessions during the republic, and he was also sheriff of the county from 1649 to 1650.50 Hopwood witnessed the taking of the Engagement once, but this brief encounter with the oath is highly significant, as it seems to have been the occasion of the transference of that roll (and presumably any rolls that might have existed for any other hundreds) to his successor as sheriff, Henry Wrigley. George Pigot witnessed the oath just once, when Michael Taylor of Euxton subscribed in Preston. Pigot had been an assessment commissioner since 1648, but he was only named to the bench in 1650. He does not appear ever to have attended the quarter sessions, however, and was not named in the next extant commission of 1652.51 The evidence of the Prescot churchwardens' accounts demonstrates that the county's justices were not the only men administering the Engagement, recording a meeting with Colonel Birch and ‘Captine Cubbon’ about the Engagement. The latter was probably Thomas Cobham, an assessment commissioner appointed as a captain in the reorganized Lancashire militia in March 1650.52 It is not clear what machinery was used to apply the oath to the wider population. The archival history of the two documents does not furnish us with any more clues as to their origin, neither having descended with the records of any administrative body.53 If the act had been followed correctly, then the subscriptions should have been passed by the justices to the sheriff, who would have recorded the names of subscribers in a book to be delivered to the clerk of parliament at the end of the sheriff's term of office.54 The rolls might indeed have been in the custody of the sheriffs. Edmund Hopwood, sheriff of Lancashire for a year from November 1649, witnessed his successor, Henry Wrigley, take the oath on 11 June 1651. Obviously, the latter date would have been during Wrigley's term, and it could therefore, as discussed above, represent the transference of that roll between the two men.55 However, a note among the county sequestration papers furnishes us with a better idea of the origin of these documents. This lists a series of payments to William Grundy for various journeys made between 25 January and 24 June 1650. Among them is a note that Grundy was ‘Sent by Mr Evan Wall to Manchester for the Roules in Salford hundred of the subscription of the Ingagem[en]t’.56 Grundy was the messenger to the commissioners for sequestrations while Evan Wall was their clerk. Grundy's journey arouses the suspicion that the rolls were created by the administration of the sequestrations. Furthermore, the note demonstrates that more rolls must once have existed, for Grundy's journeys (none later than 24 June 1650) predate the signing of the rolls now under examination; while the fact that it was necessary to state that Grundy was sent for Salford hundred's rolls indicates that such documents existed for other hundreds. The note of another journey carried out by Grundy in the same period, this time ‘To the Gent[lemen] in Blackburn hundred & Capt Holt, and the Com[missione]rs in Darby hundred hundred [sic] w[i]th the order aboute the Engagem[en]t’, may also relate to the creation of rolls in other hundreds.57 If we cannot be certain which branch of local government created the Engagement rolls, nor can we ascertain where they were created. It is possible that, for office-holders at least, special meetings were called for subscription to the oath. In north Yorkshire, two magistrates issued a summons for the Engagement to be taken at nine a.m. on 16 January 1651 at the house of Nicholas Conyers of Pickering. In this instance, the constables were to draw up a list of subscribers, although ‘none are expected to appear upon that summons but such as have augmentations from the parliament or derive there [sic] authority from it’.58 In Somerset, the zealous John Pyne announced that he had already sworn in ‘all constables and tithingmen’ in November 1649.59 In Lancashire, the churchwardens of Prescot recorded two such meetings ‘aboute the Engagement’ in their accounts, once with the high constables and once with Birch and Cobham. It seems likely that these meetings were the occasion for the swearing of the oath by the churchwardens of the area. Although neither entry is dated, they are recorded near others in late 1649, soon after the Engagement had first been extended to office-holders.60 It is not evident why there were two meetings, but the Engagement Act did not enable high constables to witness the oath. Possibly the authorities were using the traditional apparatus of the state for the administration of the Engagement, directing the high constables to issue warrants requiring the attendance of office-holders before magistrates to take the oath. If the intention was to secure a mass subscription of the contentious oath, then one would assume that the venue would have to be sufficiently large and public for such an event, for example the parish church or local courthouse. The administration of the Protestation of 1641 may be illuminating here. In some parts of the country, including parts of Lancashire, it had been taken in the parish church after a service.61 Elsewhere, the Protestation had been subscribed en masse at specially called meetings, as at Manchester and Salford, where the Protestation was taken on a Monday before the J.P.s.62 The Engagement rolls give no clues as to the venue of their subscription, however, and so we are restricted only to negative inferences. None of the dates on which the oath was subscribed corresponds to the sittings of either the quarter sessions or the local manor courts, and this suggests that these returns were not made in open court. It may well not be a coincidence that the Manchester Engagement rolls were often signed on market days. They were signed on ten separate occasions at Manchester in 1651, eight of which were market days, while a ninth signing coincided with a market day in Salford.63 The evidence of the second set of returns does not bear out the idea that the authorities deliberately sought to use such occasions for the swearing of the oath. Although the signing of the Engagement at Wigan on 28 June 1650 coincided with a market day, and the signing at Bury on 23 April 1651 took place in the middle of the town's annual fair, none of the other nine dates on which the roll was signed coincided with markets or fairs. Indeed, Heywood and Middleton did not even have such events.64 It is notable that all of the Lancashire places where the Engagement was signed had a church or chapel. However, the returns were only collected once on a Sunday, at Middleton on 3 November 1650, and so it seems unlikely that divine service was used to facilitate the signing of the Engagement in Lancashire. Each of the Engagement returns contains over 400 signatures, although both are now only partially legible because of damage.65 The idea that these signatures were collected haphazardly, rather than through a formal proclamation of the Engagement, is reinforced by the layout of the rolls. The documents are untidy, and signatures have often been squeezed into any available gap, no matter how awkwardly, apparently following no pattern and offering no precedence for status. On occasions, this has resulted in signatures being crammed into a gap out of date order. This is in stark contrast to the ordered structure of the 1641 Protestation returns, which were often signed first by the leading members in each community, with further signatures collected in house-row order. The Engagement returns were clearly working documents, signed by subscribers in the order that their oaths were taken. Intriguingly, there is clear evidence that at least some of the engagers signed on more than one occasion: George Siddall signed the 1651 Manchester rolls in three separate places, while John Heaward's signature is on both sets. This would appear to be further evidence that these were working documents, rather than a final record, although it is still curious that any individual would sign the same roll more than once. The duplication of further names might represent other individuals signing more than once, but the illiteracy of the majority of the engagers makes this uncertain. More likely, much of this duplication represents the frequency of common names. Some of these duplicated names might indicate relatives, suggested by the occasional occurrence of ‘junior’ and ‘senior’. This may also serve to explain the consecutive signatures of Ambrose Jackson on the 1651 Manchester rolls, apparently written in different hands. While many of those signing were literate, the majority were not; while they were drawn from across the county, and indeed at least once from beyond the county's borders, the bulk were local to the area where the returns were collected; and while a handful of women signed, the vast majority were male. Although the engagers were not limited by location, gender or social status, it is clear that most of the engagers were east Lancashire men from the lower levels of society. It seems reasonable to estimate, therefore, that at least 800 people took the Engagement in east Lancashire in 1650 and 1651. Identifying the engagers has proved difficult, and it is likely that the majority of the men taking the oath will remain anonymous. Although the group included some local notables, such as Humphrey Chetham, founder of the famous library and parliamentarian treasurer of Lancashire during the civil war, and Oswald Mosley, a cousin of the lord of the manor of Manchester, most appear to have been much more humble.66 Despite this, it is still possible to learn much about this group of people. First, only thirty-one of the 434 engagers recorded on the 1650 roll (Add. Roll 7180) were able to sign their own name. Perhaps not surprisingly, the urban population of Manchester demonstrated a much greater level of literacy, but still only 116 of the 422 engagers on the 1651 rolls (DDB/42/3) signed for themselves.67 Although this evidence alone is tenuous, the high level of illiteracy displayed by the subscribers bears out the suggestion that they were mainly drawn from the lower levels of society.68 Only three engagers recorded their occupation: two men worked in the cloth-trade (a ‘clother’ and a ‘wolster’), and the third was a smith. A total of 126 of the 1650 engagers noted their abode. As might be expected, they were drawn almost wholly from Salford and Blackburn hundreds, from Ashton-under-Lyne and Astley in the south of this region to Chipping and Broadhead in the north. However, men from Euxton in Leyland hundred and Haigh in West Derby hundred also signed this roll, as did one man from Halifax in Yorkshire. If ‘Fortune’ is taken correctly to be Forton, near Garstang, then the engagers who signed the 1650 roll were drawn from five of the six hundreds of Lancashire. Comparison of the Manchester engagers with those named in the returns of the 1641 Protestation and a 1651 assessment roll for Manchester and Salford indicates that the majority were not inhabitants of the town. In total, only 103 of the 1651 engagers might also have taken the Protestation within the townships of Manchester or Salford, while no more than fifty-four householders who paid tax on property within the town in 1651 could also have taken the Engagement in that year.69 Even so, some of the engagers listed as Manchester householders in the 1651 assessment were certainly resident elsewhere.70 What is apparent is that many of the engagers travelled some distance to conduct their business. Many of those who took the Engagement at Blackburn in 1650 were not local, but had travelled from the parishes of Bolton, Bury, Radcliffe and Rochdale. This need not surprise us, and might indicate the contingencies of local topography, or the importance of local economic links. Parts of these parishes were closer to Blackburn than to Manchester, and so this might suggest that the engagers opted for personal convenience over administrative requirement. The evidence also further emphasizes the impression that these rolls were not collected through the traditional apparatus of the county quarter sessions, which would have required the engagers of Salford hundred to travel to Manchester, and those of Blackburn hundred to Preston. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Engagement rolls, however, is the presence of a small number of women. In total, twenty-four signed the two rolls, ten of whom recorded that they were widows. This raises a number of complex questions about the nature of the Engagement. There has been much discussion in recent years about gender, citizenship and female participation in the political life of early modern England. The economic and legal independence of widows has long been recognized, but their political independence is still widely debated.71 Women have been recorded voting in parliamentary elections, and serving as constables and church wardens; less formally, women organized and led riots against enclosure or the shipping of grain from areas of dearth; and the outbreak of civil war enabled some women, such as the countess of Derby, to intrude into the ultimate masculine world of warfare, through the defence of their homes.72 Historians have estimated that widows headed between six and thirteen per cent of early modern English households.73 The sixteen-forties provided a number of precedents for these female engagers, with several examples of women taking the Protestation of 1641, and the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. In 1641, for instance, fourteen per cent of the householders who took the Protestation at Croston in west Lancashire were women, all described as widows or spinsters.74 Furthermore, in 1649 a group of Leveller women had felt sufficiently empowered to insist that they had ‘a proportionable share in the commonwealth of this country’, through their work towards the defence of their communities, their financial sacrifice in support of parliament, and the loss of husbands and sons in combat.75 However, whether this was the prelude to a Leveller-sponsored campaign to achieve female suffrage in the sixteen-fifties is debatable. Ann Hughes, for instance, has argued that the Levellers' rhetoric demonstrated that ‘women's capacities for political actions and their involvement with the public good were on a lesser scale than men's … [and] offered clear justification for the male head of household's monopoly of formal political rights’.76 Whatever the intentions of the Levellers with regard to women and the franchise, there is little doubt that the Rump had no intention of empowering women. The female petitioners of 1649 were directed by one Rumper to ‘go home, and looke after your owne businesse, and meddle with your huswifery’.77 While the Protestation had been ambiguously proffered to all adult inhabitants, ‘both Householders and others’, without reference to gender, the Engagement was explicitly limited to ‘all men whatsoever’.78 Nevertheless, the evidence of Lancashire demonstrates that at least some women were able to intrude themselves into this masculine domain, and their presence on the rolls may tell us something about the nature of the Engagement in that county. Ascertaining the motives of the engagers is as difficult as establishing their identities. The Engagement fell between outright coercion and voluntary subscription. While the act called for the subscription of ‘all men whatsoever’, nobody was to be forced to take the oath. Nevertheless, anybody who wished to benefit from the state in some way first had to swear. This included all office-holders, who would forfeit their position, be disabled from holding any new office and ‘forfeit double the value of all such profits and benefits as they shall receive and take’ if they refused to subscribe.79 The act also imposed the oath upon the legal process, by requiring plaintiffs to prove that they had taken the Engagement before they could open a suit at law.80 A further incentive for taking the Engagement was added with the appointment of new sequestration commissioners in 1650. The commissioners were directed ‘that whoever receives any allowance or pay from them, out of sequestration money, is first to subscribe the engagement’.81 Therefore, if the men and women who signed the Lancashire Engagement rolls did not do so as a voluntary expression of support for the new republic, then we should expect to find that they were office-holders, were going through the courts or had dealings with the county's sequestration commissioners. As we have already seen, there is certainly evidence that some Lancashire office-holders were made to take the Engagement. The Prescot churchwardens were tendered the oath in late 1649, and, if we are to believe the admittedly partial evidence of John Vicars, the constable of Shaw also took the oath.82 Nevertheless, it is unlikely that many of the engagers recorded in these sets of returns were office-holders at the time. It has been possible to discover the names of many of those who served as petty constables or churchwardens during the Commonwealth period.83 Taking into account the duplication of common names, no more than sixty of our 800 men might have held parochial office when they took the oath. If it seems improbable that many of the engagers were serving office-holders, then we might instead expect them to be involved in legal action. Certainly, some cases seem quite conclusive. For example, James Haigh of Bins complained to a J.P. about stolen sheep, and Henry Garside was sent to investigate – both men signed the Engagement roll on the same day.84 Nevertheless, no more than fifty-five of the engagers can be positively identified as involved in action before the county bench. A more likely cause for the taking of the Engagement is the sequestration of the estates of delinquents and recusants. As we have seen, this is suggested by the sending of the messenger William Grundy to the sequestration commissioners to collect the Salford hundred Engagement rolls in early 1650.85 Although the Engagement Act did not explicitly state that delinquents must subscribe the oath before compounding for their estates, as noted above this was a requirement introduced in 1650, and many petitioners indicated that they had taken the oath.86 This would explain the presence of several of the Lancashire engagers, men such as Oliver Nabb of Walmesley, whose estates were sequestered in 1650, the same year that he signed the Engagement roll; while James Urmston, who also subscribed in 1650, may have been the sequestered recusant of the same name from West Leigh.87 John Guest of Astley petitioned the committee for compounding in October 1651 to allow the payment of a rent charge due to him from the estates of Sir Thomas Tyldesley, and there are signatures on the Engagement rolls for a Joane Guest of Astley in 1650 and a John Gest in 1651.88 Sequestration may also explain the presence of Humphrey Chetham's signature on the Engagement rolls. Chetham was interested in the purchase of sequestered property, such as the college in Manchester seized from the earl of Derby which he had tried to buy in 1649 to found his hospital. As a financier to many of the local gentry, several of his debtors were sequestered royalists, some of whom attempted to clear their debts by allowing him the use of their estates. Besides money owed by Derby from before the start of the war, Francis Mosley of Collyhurst – another engager – owed Chetham several hundred pounds.89 Debts owed by delinquents might explain the presence of women among the engagers, as widows were playing an increasingly important role in rural communities as money-lenders.90 Alternatively, they may have been trying to claim their share of sequestered estates which should have been set aside for them, or seeking to renew the payment of annuities which had been stopped during sequestration. Although once again only a small group of engagers might have had direct dealings with the committee for compounding, there is good reason to suppose that the Engagement rolls were created as part of the administration of sequestration. It is striking how many of the residences that were recorded by the engagers were to be found in areas where royalists or the crown held significant estates. In particular, a number of engagers came from townships within or adjacent to the earl of Derby's sequestered manors at Bury and Pilkington, Robert Holt of Stubley's extensive estates around Rochdale, and royal lands that formed part of the honour of Clitheroe in east Lancashire. Without extant rentals for these estates, it is impossible to confirm that many of the engagers were tenants of sequestered estates, but there is good reason to think that they might be. While it has been demonstrated that, nationwide, the sequestration and then sale of royalist estates did not produce a dramatic redistribution of property in England, the Derby estates in Bury and Pilkington were some of the few where former tenants enthusiastically purchased – and successfully retained – their tenements.91 Here, a ‘vocal militant opposition’ had grown up against the earl, led by Peter Seddon and his son, also Peter, both of whom probably signed the Engagement rolls.92 They organized a number of petitions in south-east Lancashire warning against any settlement with Derby. In one undated petition, a number of his Bury and Pilkington tenants – seventeen of whom might have been engagers – expressed concern about their leases. Having served parliament ‘ffaithfully & Constantly … to the Hazard of all’, some of the number had been killed, ‘By reason whereof some of their leases are much weakened; others are Expyred’. They requested that they might be protected from rack rents upon the expired leases, and hoped to have the first opportunity to purchase their tenements should parliament sell Derby's lands. In a similar petition addressed to the committee of compounding in August 1653, three of the six signatories might also be engagers.93 Although Derby's estates were not finally forfeited and included in the first Act of Sale until July 1651, that is, after most of the signatures recorded on these rolls, and Bury and Pilkington were not sold until 1654, it would still seem probable that these rolls were in some way created in the administration of sequestration.94 The new sequestration commissioners might have interpreted their instructions to include extending the oath to tenants who wanted to confirm, renew or enter into new leases. Several engagers, such as Michael Taylor of Euxton, probably farmed sequestered land.95 Meanwhile, crown lands had been put on sale as early as July 1649, although there is no direct evidence to suggest that the engagers were tenants involved in their purchase.96 The timing of the Lancashire returns, and the context within which they were created, could be significant. It is important to remember that the eighteen months in which these returns were collected coincided with England's occupation of Scotland, and the preparations for the latter's invasion of England. As a result, regiments were raised for service north of the border, and the militia of the county was reorganized. A new foot regiment was raised in the Manchester region in 1650, mustering twice at Cheetham Hill, on 19 July and 2 August, before marching north, and regiments from other parts of the county were also posted to Scotland during 1650.97 What is more, the Militia Act of July 1650 dictated that the ‘Officers, Troopers and Common Soldiers’ of the new forces were to subscribe the Engagement before taking up arms.98 At least one man who signed the rolls was involved in the invasion of Scotland. Oliver Nabb, who had been wrongly sequestered in 1644, and whose lands had been put back into sequestration by the new commissioners in 1650, was reported in 1653 to have served in parliament's forces ‘at the last invasion into Scotland’.99 The engagers could thus have been soldiers mustering for service against the Scots, or alternatively they might have been disbanded soldiers – and their widows – seeking outstanding pay. Large numbers of Lancashire soldiers were disbanded in the spring of 1649; they would have been required to take the Engagement before they could collect their arrears, which were often paid very late.100 One final hypothesis, not yet explored, is that these rolls represent the spontaneous and voluntary taking of the oath by a large group of Lancastrians. The presence of a number of Derby's tenants from Bury and Pilkington, including several who were behind a long and concerted campaign against the Derby influence within the county, suggests that these were men committed to the parliamentarian, and more importantly the godly, cause within the county. Others were tenants of the crown. Of course, whether taking the Engagement might have been motivated by nascent republicanism, godly zeal, material benefit or antipathy to former landlords, or indeed whether these forces can or should be distinguished from each other, is impossible to say. And the importance of oaths in binding early modern society together should never be forgotten; even if these rolls were created as part of a more prosaic process, such as the letting of sequestered estates, this would still have served to bind those tenants and the Commonwealth magistracy together in their obedience to the new regime, thus helping to create a republican community, ‘for the better uniting of this Nation’.101 Although the Engagement rolls appear to be incredibly frustrating sources for the historian of the Commonwealth, there are still significant conclusions that can be drawn. While the majority of engagers have remained stubbornly anonymous to us, this should not be seen as a failure; efforts to identify individuals at a distance of 350 years are, unsurprisingly, the historical equivalent of searching for needles in haystacks. Nevertheless, some simple qualitative information about the engagers can be ascertained, providing a profile of those who took the oath in east Lancashire in late 1650 and 1651. The overwhelming majority were men, as we might expect from the wording of the act, of whom the bulk were unable to sign their own names. Of course, this in itself is not conclusive proof that most of the engagers were drawn from the lowest levels of society, but it is perhaps revealing that so few of them can be identified as householders in contemporary tax assessments. While the act had laid down that the oath should be extended to office-holders and plaintiffs, few of our engagers can be positively identified as being either, and indeed the rolls seem to have been generated by the administration of sequestration. The fact that many of these engagers were of the lowest social orders, coupled with the inclusion of the women (especially widows), suggests that these were probably the tenants of sequestered estates, or possibly men and women owed arrears for military service. What is clear is that the engagers represent only a small proportion of the population, and therefore are not indicative of an effort to impose the oath on the general public, at least not en masse.102 Some 800 men and women signed these returns, collected from across two large hundreds within the county, over the space of eighteen months. To put this into perspective, 1,305 people took the Protestation in the town of Manchester alone in 1641, and 584 took the oath of allegiance to Charles II at Manchester in 1661.103 It should be remembered that these few extant returns may only represent a handful of those originally created, and there is certainly tantalizing evidence that other rolls were generated within Lancashire; the numbers of engagers recorded here might only have been a fraction of the real total. Nevertheless, the paucity of engagers in these returns does offer some insight into the motivation of the local magistrates. In Vallance's estimation, ‘mass subscription to the Engagement was only required in areas where zealously republican officials … were in control’.104 The ubiquitous Colonel Thomas Birch's commitment to the various regimes of the sixteen-fifties cannot be questioned, but the zealousness of many of his colleagues appears much more equivocal. Birch's description of the militia commissioners' ‘chearefulnes’ upon subscribing the Engagement certainly gives no further insight into the reasons for their demeanour. The fact that many of the magistrates employed in the tendering of the oath were among the most junior members of the bench, being recent appointments of relatively lower social status than their more well-established colleagues, allows several intriguing speculations. It is possible that these men were the weakest members of the magistracy, and so the least able to resist the demands of the central government. As such, they may have been saddled with the most arduous or unpalatable tasks by their colleagues; lacking in influence, they would have been the least able to refuse. Alternatively, these men may represent the more radical members of the gentry, those most willing to serve the new republic. Certainly, the returns were collected from Salford and Blackburn hundreds, the area that had also provided the firmest support for parliament during the civil wars, and which would furnish the greatest number of magistrates during the Commonwealth. Whether the dedication of these men to the Engagement arose from a commitment to the Commonwealth or to their own careers is impossible to tell; without further evidence, these questions will never be answered by more than speculation.105 The same conclusion must be reached about the men and women who signed the returns. Ultimately, we simply have to accept that we will never identify many of those who took the oath. While the majority of the subscribers remain anonymous, their motivation must remain equally murky. It is striking that the republic's highly contentious oath was still being sworn by anybody in late 1651, let alone in a county like Lancashire, commonly perceived to be highly hostile to the new regime. Given the unpopularity of both the Engagement and the republic, it is probable that most of the subscribers were compelled to take the oath. Yet, we must never discount the possibility that these signatures could represent a spontaneous and voluntary expression of loyalty to the new regime, even if a belated one. The most significant conclusion that can be reached from these returns, however, is not about who was taking the Engagement, or why, but simply that it was taken at all. Footnotes 1 The full text of the act can be found in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–60, ed. C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait (3 vols., 1911), ii. 325–9. An extension to the act was passed on 23 Feb. 1650 (Acts and Ordinances, ii. 348–9). 2 S. Barber, ‘The Engagement for the council of state and the establishment of the Commonwealth government’ , Hist. Research , lxiii ( 1990 ), 44 – 57 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 44–6; Commons Journals, vi. 306. 3 C.J., vi. 306; Acts and Ordinances, ii. 325. 4 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 325. 5 S. Barber, Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution, 1646–59 (Edinburgh, 1998), p. 175. 6 The best short introduction to the controversy is still P. Zagorin, History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (1954), esp. chs. 5–6; see also Barber, Regicide and Republicanism, ch. 7; and R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 (Cambridge, 1993), ch. 6, esp. pp. 253–9. For the British context, see K. MacKenzie, ‘Loyalty to king or Covenant retained: Presbyterians in the three nations and the English Commonwealth, 1649–53’, in Beyond the Anchoring Grounds: More Cross-currents in Irish and Scottish Studies, ed. S. Alcobia-Murphy, J. Archbold, J. Gibney and C. Jones (Belfast, 2005), pp. 168–76. 7 C.J., viii. 259; E. Vallance, ‘Oaths, casuistry, and equivocation: Anglican responses to the Engagement controversy’ , Historical Jour. , xliv ( 2001 ), 59 – 77 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 70. 8 There are also returns extant for Rye parish in Sussex and for parts of Gloucestershire ( E. Vallance, ‘Protestation, Vow, Covenant and Engagement: swearing allegiance in the English civil war’ , Hist. Research , lxxv ( 2002 ), 408 – 24 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 422–3). 9 British Library, Additional Roll 7180; the author is grateful to Dr. Edward Vallance for this reference. 10 Preston, Lancashire Record Office (hereafter L.R.O.), DDB/42/3. 11 The Life of Adam Martindale, ed. R. Parkinson (Chetham Soc., old ser., iv, 1845), p. 93. 12 Zagorin, pp. 67–9. 13 A. D. Meikle, ‘The Lancashire Presbyterian ministers, 1640–62’ (unpublished University of Manchester M.Phil. thesis, 1990), pp. 218–25. 14 Vallance, ‘Oaths, casuistry, and equivocation’, p. 60; see also E. Vallance, ‘State oaths and political casuistry in England 1640–1702’ (unpublished University of Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 2000). 15 Vallance, ‘Protestation, Vow, Covenant and Engagement’, p. 422. 16 Certain Particulars Further tending to Satisfie the Tender Consciences of Such as are Required to take the Engagement (1651), pp. 2–3 (quoted in Vallance, ‘Protestation, Vow, Covenant and Engagement’, p. 422). 17 Zagorin, p. 75. 18 Richard Bradshaw to John Bradshaw, 2 March 1649/50 (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1650, pp. 20–1). 19 Meikle, pp. 218–25. 20 Parkinson, pp. 93–7. 21 Meikle, p. 223. 22 A Plea for Non-Scribers (1650), p. 3. 23 A Plea for Non-Scribers, p. 9. 24 A Plea for Non-Scribers, pp. 10–11. 25 Brit. Libr., E.603.(6.), Mercurius Politicus, 6–13 June 1650, p. 4; E.604.(6.), Mercurius Politicus, 20–27 June 1650, p. 40. 26 Royalist Composition Papers, ed. J. H. Stanning and J. Brownbill (6 vols., Record Soc. of Lancs. and Cheshire (hereafter R.S.L.C.), 1891–1942), vi. 402–3. 27 Oliver Heywood's Life of John Angier, ed. E. Axon (Chetham Soc., new ser., xcvii, 1937), p. 67. 28 Constantine was restored to the ministry at Oldham after the repeal of the Engagement in 1654 (Minutes of the Manchester Presbyterian Classis, ed. W. A. Shaw (3 vols., Chetham Soc., new ser., xx, xxii, xxiv, 1890–2), pp. 135, 424–5; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, p. 443). 29 The Autobiography of Henry Newcome, ed. R. Parkinson (2 vols., Chetham Soc., old ser., xxvi–xxvii, 1852), ii. 24–5; Liverpool Town Books, 1649–71, ed. M. Power (R.S.L.C., cxxxvi, 1999), p. 31. 30 Minutes of the Committee for the Relief of Plundered Ministers, ed. W. A. Shaw (2 vols., R.S.L.C., xxviii, xxxiv, 1893–7), i. 84–5; The National Archives of the U.K.: P.R.O., SP 28/306 fo. 300. 31 Richard Bradshaw to John Bradshaw, 2 March 1649/50 (Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, p. 20). 32 D. Underdown, Pride's Purge (1971), pp. 297–306. 33 For a detailed discussion of the membership of the county's committees and magistracy during the Commonwealth, see A. Craven, ‘Coercion and compromise: Lancashire provincial politics and the creation of the English republic’ (unpublished University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 2004), pp. 21–44. The 15 men excluded from the Lancashire bench in 1650 included four who made their sole appearance in the commissions of the peace in Sept. 1649. Also dropped from the bench in 1650 were seven M.P.s who were either secluded from the house of commons during Pride's Purge or chose to abstain from acting further in the House in protest (Craven, pp. 33–5). Edmund Hopwood has not been included among the omissions, having been ‘pricked’ for the shrievalty in that year. 34 Craven, pp. 27–9. The expansion of the committee from 25 members in Dec. 1649 to 41 in Nov. 1650 suggests that many members were not active (Acts and Ordinances, ii. 301, 469–70). Twenty-three of the assessment commissioners appointed in Dec. 1649 were also appointed J.P.s in Apr. 1650, seven for the first time (Acts and Ordinances, ii. 301; L.R.O., QSC/52). See also, Craven, pp. 35–7. 35 Thomas Birch to John Ashe, 22 Feb. 1649/50 (T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 23/249 fo. 31); Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, i. 177. 36 Most of these survive among the sequestration papers for the county (T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fos. 608, 611, 620, 629–30, 660, 662–3, 665, 669–71, 690–1, 705; Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 59661 fo. 25). See Craven, pp. 25–7, for the reorganization of Lancashire's militia commission. 37 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, p. 359. Three of the 20 men, Robert Cunliffe, George Pigot and Peter Holt, might have signed these orders in their capacity as sequestration commissioners; it is not clear whether they might have held both offices simultaneously. Holt and James Assheton of Chadderton were both referred to as commissioners of the militia in 1651, although it is not clear how accurately (L.R.O., QSB/1/353 fo. 33). 38 L.R.O., QSC/52. The sole commissioner dropped from the bench in 1650 was Richard Shuttleworth, for whom the evidence is confusing. Shuttleworth, a member of the parliamentary old guard, may have found the Engagement untenable, and may also have been deemed dangerous to the new regime, as two of his sons were detained by the council of state in 1650 and 1651 (Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, p. 523; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1651, p. 522). Nevertheless, he was active as a militia commissioner in March 1651 (T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fo. 690). 39 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 328. Only Lancaster, Liverpool, Preston and Wigan were incorporated at this time. 40 For the activity of Lancashire's magistrates during the Commonwealth, see Craven, pp. 39–40. 41 The disorganization of Brit. Libr., Add. Roll 7180 makes the identity of the witnessing J.P.s uncertain on some occasions. For instance, it is not clear whether James Assheton and Peter Holt witnessed the oath at Middleton on both 3 and 4 Nov. 1650, and also at Bury on 9 July, while it appears that no J.P.s signed for the taking of the oath at Bury on 23 Apr. 1651. 42 L.R.O., QSC/43–52, QSO/2/21–4; Acts and Ordinances, ii. 301. 43 L.R.O., QSC/52, QSO/2/23–4; Victoria County History of Lancaster, v. 117; Acts and Ordinances, i. 758–60. 44 Brit. Libr., E.1021.(2.), John Vicars, Dagon Demolished (1660), pp. 7–8; the pamphlet was published posthumously. For Vicars's career, see J. Gasper, ‘Vicars, John (1580–1652)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/28264> [accessed 12 March 2008]. Intriguingly, some five of the pamphlet's 20 examples are drawn from Lancashire. However, this probably does not represent an abundant zeal within the county for the oath, but rather the good relationship between Presbyterians in Lancashire and London. Two examples – including that of Assheton – relate to the removal of the minister Robert Constantine from his benefice at Oldham, while a third concerns the constable of Shaw, a township neighbouring Oldham. 45 L.R.O., QSC/53–4, QSO/2/25–6; Acts and Ordinances, ii. 469–70. 46 Cunliffe might have been named to the bench in a missing commission of 1651, but his first recorded attendance at a session was not until July 1652. However, he was removed from the assessment committee in 1649, and not reappointed until 1652; he was a sequestration commissioner from 1650, and might also have been a militia commissioner. Gratton numbered him among the most experienced committeemen in the county, and one of the most active during the Commonwealth period (L.R.O., QSC/52, QSO/2/25; J. M. Gratton, ‘The parliamentarian and royalist war effort in Lancashire’ (unpublished University of Manchester Ph.D. thesis, 1998), pp. 339–42). 47 List of Sheriffs for England and Wales: from the Earliest Times until A.D. 1831, ed. A. Hughes (P.R.O. Lists and Indexes, ix, 1898), pp. 72–3; L.R.O., QSC/52, QSO/2/23–4; Acts and Ordinances, ii. 301. 48 L.R.O., QSC/47–52; Acts and Ordinances, i. 114. Craven, chs. 1, 3; Gratton, pp. 309ff.; D. Whitehead, ‘Birch, Thomas (bap. 1608, d. 1678)’, O.D.N.B. <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/66520> [accessed 12 March 2008]. 49 L.R.O., QSC/43–52. 50 D. J. Wilkinson, ‘The commission of the peace in Lancashire, 1603–42’ , Trans. Hist. Soc. Lancs. and Cheshire , cxxxii ( 1983 ), 41 – 66 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , esp. app. 1, pp. 63–6; List of Sheriffs, p. 73. 51 Acts and Ordinances, i. 1085; L.R.O., QSC/52–3. 52 Prescot Churchwardens' Accounts 1635–63, ed. T. Steel (R.S.L.C., cxxxvii, 2002), p. 134. Steel identified this man as John Cubbon of Burtonwood, but with no justification. For Thomas Cobham's membership of the assessment committee, see Acts and Ordinances, ii. 37, where he was wrongly called ‘Cubban’; for his militia commission, see Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, p. 505. 53 The Manchester returns form part of an artificial collection at the Lancashire Record Office, originally collected by local historian Col. John Parker. The other set of returns was given to the British Library by Sir Charles Lemon, Bart., of Carclew, Cornwall. Although Lemon had a distant connection with Manchester (through his sister), it seems more likely that his interest in the returns stemmed from their qualities as a form of census – he had served as president of the Royal Statistical Society 1836–8. Lemon's sister was married to Francis Jodrell of Henbury, Cheshire, whose father, John Bower of Manchester, had married the Jodrell heiress and assumed the surname (Alumni Cantabrigienses, comp. J. and J. A. Venn (10 vols., Cambridge, 1922–54), ii. iii. 574; the author is grateful to Alan Spencer for this reference). 54 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 328. 55 List of Sheriffs, p. 73. 56 T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fos. 608–609v. 57 T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fo. 608. Capt. Holt may refer to Peter Holt of Bridge, near Bury, who was one of the most assiduous of the J.P.s witnessing the two Engagement rolls under examination (see Table 1, above). 58 Northallerton, North Yorkshire Record Office, MIC 1320/1125 (quoted in Barber, Regicide and Republicanism, p. 181). 59 Historical Manuscripts Commission, F. W. Leyborne-Popham MSS., p. 51. 60 Prescot Churchwardens' Accounts, p. 134. 61 The Westmorland Protestation Returns, 1641/2, ed. M. Faraday (Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archaeol. Soc., xvii, 1971), p. ix. The Protestation was subscribed in Wigan after evening prayer (‘Protestation returns of 1641–2 in Manchester’, ed. J. Bailey, The Palatine Notebook , i ( 1881 ), 80 – 4 , 102–8, 122–4, 136–40, 167–72, 210–15, at p. 81). 62 West Sussex Protestation Returns, 1641–2, ed. R. Rice (Sussex Record Soc., v, 1906), p. iv; Oxfordshire and North Berkshire Protestation Returns and Assessments, ed. J. Gibson (Oxfordshire Record Soc., lix, 1994), p. xiii; Bailey, ‘Protestation returns of Manchester’, p. lxxxi; ‘Protestation Returns of 1641–2 in Salford’, ed. J. Bailey, The Palatine Notebook , iv ( 1884 ), 100 – 11 , 123–5, at p. 100. 63 The oath was sworn at Manchester on Wednesday 15 Jan., Saturday 25 Jan., Friday 31 Jan., Saturday 1 Feb., Saturday 1 March, Saturday 5 Apr., Monday 7 Apr., Saturday 12 Apr., Monday 14 Apr. and Saturday 8 Nov. 1651 (A Handbook of Dates for Students of English History, ed. C. R. Cheney, rev. M. Jones (Royal Historical Soc. guides and handbooks, iv, Cambridge, 2000). The market was held in Manchester on Mondays and Saturdays, while Salford's markets took place on Mondays and Wednesdays ( G. H. Tupling, ‘Markets and fairs of Lancashire recorded before 1701’ , Trans. Lancs. and Cheshire Antiquarian Soc. , li ( 1936 ), 86 – 110 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 101, 106–7; see also G. H. Tupling, ‘Lancashire markets in the 16th and 17th centuries’ , Trans. Lancs. and Cheshire Antiquarian Soc. , lviii ( 1947 ), 1 – 34 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close ). 64 Tupling, ‘Markets and fairs of Lancashire’, passim. Brit. Libr., Add. Roll 7180 was signed on the following dates (locations in brackets): Tuesday 11 June (Heywood), Friday 28 June (Wigan), Tuesday 9 July (Bury), Sunday 3 and Monday 4 Nov. (Middleton), Thursday 7 and Friday 8 Nov. (Blackburn), Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 Nov. (Bury), Tuesday 19 and Thursday 21 Nov. 1650 (Preston); and Wednesday 23 Apr. 1651 (Bury) (see Cheney). 65 This author has counted 422 separate signatures on L.R.O., DDB/42/3 and 434 on Brit. Libr., Add. Roll 7180, but it is evident that there are more on each that are no longer legible. One of the two rolls of DDB/42/3 is also ripped at the bottom. 66 S. J. Guscott, Humphrey Chetham 1580–1653: Fortune, Politics and Mercantile Culture in 17th-Century England (Chetham Soc., 3rd ser., xlv, 2003). Frustratingly for the historian, the Mosleys were fond of a small number of names, which regularly appear over many generations within different branches of the family. However, this Oswald was probably either the younger brother of the royalist Nicholas Mosley of Ancoats, or the grandson of Oswald Mosley of the Garrett (‘Mosley family: memoranda of Oswald and Nicholas Mosley of Ancoats’, ed. E. Axon, Chetham Miscellanies New Series 1 (Chetham Soc., new ser., xlvii, 1902), pp. 18, 25; Dugdale's Visitation of Lancashire 1664 Pt. II, ed. F. Raines (Chetham Soc., old ser., lxxxv, 1872), p. 213; see also V.C.H. Lancs., iv. 232). 67 The use of signatures as the ‘criterion of literacy’ is ‘the admittedly imperfect but generally accepted one’ ( R. A. Houston, ‘The development of literacy: northern England 1640–1750’ , Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. xxxv ( 1982 ), 199 – 216 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 200). See also D. Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1980), ch. 2, for a discussion of the different methods of measuring literacy. 68 Despite particular uncertainties, Cressy concluded that ‘it is clear that literacy was a powerful marker of social and economic position’ (Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order, p. 141). 69 The Protestation of 1641 was a nationwide poll of all adult males, ‘representing something approaching the entire adult population’ in Feb. 1642 ( D. Cressy, ‘Vow, Covenant and Protestation: sources for the history of population and literacy in the 17th century’ , Local Historian , xiv ( 1980 ), 134 – 41 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 135). For Manchester, see Bailey, ‘Protestation returns of Manchester’, pp. 80–4, 102–8, 122–4, 136–40, 167–72, 210–15; for Salford, see Bailey, ‘Protestation returns of Salford’, pp. 100–11, 123–5. The originals are preserved at the House of Lords Record Office. 70 Ten men who took the Engagement in 1651 may originally have hailed from Stretford, including Lamwell Gee and James Ottiwell, who owned property in Manchester in 1651, and the distinctively named Ottiwell Worsley (H. T. Crofton, A History of the Ancient Chapel of Stretford in Manchester Parish (3 vols., Chetham Soc., new ser., xlii, xlv, li, 1899–1903), iii. 201–3). 71 A. M. Froide, ‘Marital status as a category of difference: singlewomen and widows in early modern England’, in Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250–1800, ed. J. M. Bennett and A. M. Froide (Philadelphia, Pa., 1999), pp. 236–7. 72 P. Crawford, ‘“The poorest she”: women and citizenship in early modern England’, in The Putney Debates of 1647: the Army, the Levellers and the English State, ed. M. Mendle (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 197–218; S. Mendleson and P. Crawford, Women in Early Modern England, 1550–1720 (Oxford, 1998), pp. 49–58, 394–418; B. Capp, ‘Separate domains? Women and authority in early modern England’, in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. P. Griffiths, A. Fox and S. Hindle (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 117–45; A. Hughes, Women, Men and Politics in the English Civil War (Keele, 1997), pp. 9–10. 73 Mendleson and Crawford, p. 174. 74 Mendleson and Crawford, pp. 397–9; G. Rogers, ‘Custom and common right: waste land enclosure and social change in west Lancashire’ , Agricultural Hist. Rev. , xli ( 1993 ), 137 – 54 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at pp. 142–3. 75 P. M. Higgins, ‘The reactions of women, with special reference to women petitioners’, in Politics, Religion and the English Civil War, ed. B. Manning (1973), pp. 179–224, at p. 217. 76 A. Hughes, ‘Gender and politics in Leveller literature’, in Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe, ed. S. D. Amussen and M. A. Kishlansky (Manchester, 1995), pp. 162–88, at p. 181. 77 Higgins, p. 212. 78 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 325. 79 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 326. 80 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 326–8. 81 Cal. Comm. Compounding, i. 168. 82 Dagon Demolished, p. 9. 83 This list has been compiled from a variety of sources, primarily a roll purporting to record the names of all petty constables within the county between 1650 and 1659 (L.R.O., QDV/20/2). This list can be supplemented with information garnered from the quarter sessions petitions at Lancashire Record Office. Some parish registers, many of which have been printed, also include the names of churchwardens and sidesmen. Although by no means comprehensive, the list so produced represents a large number of those who held minor office within the county during the Commonwealth. 84 L.R.O., QSB/1/349/16. 85 T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fos. 608–9v. 86 E.g., see the 1653 petition of Ralph Houghton of Kirkles (Cal. Comm. Compounding, iv. 3124); Royalist Composition Papers, iv. 293. 87 For Nabb, see Royalist Composition Papers, iii. 203–6; for Urmston, see Cal. Comm. Compounding, v. 3237 (Royalist Composition Papers, v. 224–5). 88 Cal. Comm. Compounding, iv. 2568. 89 Guscott, pp. 58, 232–5, 245–8, 267–8; F. R. Raines and C. W. Sutton, The Life of Humphrey Chetham (2 vols., Chetham Soc., new ser., xlix–l, 1903), i. 192–5; Royalist Composition Papers, iii. 202. 90 B. A. Holderness, ‘Widows in preindustrial society: an essay upon their economic functions’, in Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle, ed. R. M. Smith (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 423–42, at pp. 435–42; A. L. Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England (1993), pp. 194–5. 91 For the Derby estates, see B. Coward, The Stanleys, Lords Stanley and Earls of Derby, 1385–1672: the Origins, Wealth and Power of a Landowning Family (Chetham Soc., 3rd ser., xxx, 1983), pp. 68–82. See also B. G. Blackwood, The Lancashire Gentry and the Great Rebellion, 1640–60 (Chetham Soc., 3rd ser., xxv, 1978), pp. 130–6, although Coward has disputed some of Blackwood's conclusions. For the national picture, see J. Thirsk, ‘The sale of royalist lands during the Interregnum’ , Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. , v ( 1952 –3), 188 – 207 ; Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close H. J. Habbakuk, ‘Public finance and the sale of confiscated lands during the Interregnum’ , Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser. , xv ( 1962 ), 71 – 87 ; Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close P. G. Holiday, ‘Land sales and repurchases in Yorkshire after the civil wars, 1650–70’ , Northern Hist. , v ( 1970 ), 67 – 92 Google Scholar OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close . 92 Coward, pp. 174–5. 93 L.R.O., DDK/12/7; T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 23/79 fo. 403. James Fletcher might have been another Lancashire engager who was also a tenant of Derby's sequestered estates; in 1653 he bought a tenement in Bretherton that had been forfeited by Derby (Cal. Comm. Compounding, ii. 1117). 94 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 520–45; Coward, p. 71. 95 T.N.A.: P.R.O., SP 28/211 fo. 2v. 96 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 168–91. 97 J. Booker, A History of the Ancient Chapel of Birch (Chetham Soc., old ser., xlvii, 1859), p. 37; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1650, pp. 270–1, 282, 328, 332, 350; Cal. S.P. Dom 1651, p. 33. 98 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 397–402. 99 Royalist Composition Papers, iii. 204. 100 C.J., vi. 137, 282–3; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1648–9, pp. 298–9, 335–6; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1649–50, p. 27. Geoffrey Hudson has examined the success of some widows in their struggles to secure war pensions (G. L. Hudson, ‘Negotiating for blood money: war widows and the courts in 17th-century England’, in Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England, ed. J. Kermode and G. Walker (1994), pp. 146–69). 101 Acts and Ordinances, ii. 325. 102 Vallance, ‘Anglican responses to the Engagement’, p. 70. 103 Bailey, ‘Protestation returns of Manchester’; Anonymous, ‘John Hartley, JP, of Strangeways Hall, Manchester, and his fellow townsmen’ , The Palatine Notebook , iii ( 1883 ), 37 – 42 OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat Close , at p. 40. 104 Vallance, ‘Protestation, Vow, Covenant and Engagement’, p. 423. 105 See Craven, chs. 1, 2, for a broader discussion of the actions and motivation of Lancashire's Commonwealth magistrates. © Institute of Historical Research 2008 This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) © Institute of Historical Research 2008
TI - ‘For the better uniting of this nation’: the 1649 Oath of Engagement and the people of Lancashire
JF - Historical Research
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2008.00483.x
DA - 2010-02-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/for-the-better-uniting-of-this-nation-the-1649-oath-of-engagement-and-lmZGY0uXPW
SP - 83
EP - 101
VL - 83
IS - 219
DP - DeepDyve
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