The Court, Civic Politics and Architecture in Windsor, 1685–88¹

1 This article had its origins in the discussion at the Society’s seminar following the paper by Simon Thurley on 1 June 2015. That influenced his comments in Steven Brindle (ed.), Windsor Castle: A Thousand Years of a Royal Castle (London, 2018), pp. 240-2. I am most grateful to Dr Thurley for our extensive discussions on the subject. Anne Byrne, Philip Mansel, Julia Merritt and Scott Sowerby have also provided useful advice. Documents in the Royal Archives were consulted with the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

Abstract

In 1685, as part of his wider restructuring of many English boroughs, James II altered the composition of the corporation of Windsor. For a brief period the town was governed by a group of men who simultaneously held court positions. But these were not outsiders. The regular presence of the court meant that uniquely at Windsor the King was able to pack a borough corporation with royal servants who had genuine local connections. One visible legacy of their short time in office is the town’s Guildhall. This unusual case illustrates the potential influence of the royal household in local politics in early-modern England but also some of the limits on that influence.

Notes

1 This article had its origins in the discussion at the Society’s seminar following the paper by Simon Thurley on 1 June 2015. That influenced his comments in Steven Brindle (ed.), Windsor Castle: A Thousand Years of a Royal Castle (London, 2018), pp. 240-2. I am most grateful to Dr Thurley for our extensive discussions on the subject. Anne Byrne, Philip Mansel, Julia Merritt and Scott Sowerby have also provided useful advice. Documents in the Royal Archives were consulted with the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

2 Berkshire Record Office, Reading [hereafter Berks. RO], WI/IC8. Robert Richard Tighe and James Edward Davis, The Annals of Windsor (2 vols, London, 1858), vol. II, pp. 411-14, provides an English summary. See also The National Archives, Kew [hereafter TNA], SP 44/335, pp. 526-7.

3 Shelagh Bond (ed.), The First Hall Book of the Borough of New Windsor 1653–1725 (New Windsor, 1968), p. 45; Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, f. 200v; TNA, SP 44/55, p. 381; SP 44/56, p. 128; ADM 77/2, no. 89. That charter, which dated from 1664, is Berks. RO, WI/IC7.

4 Those removed were Hill, John Randall, John Church, Thomas Addams, William Carey, Thomas Goldsmith, Thomas Ducke, Silas Seabrow and Robert Porter.

5 Jennifer Levin, The Charter Controversy in the City of London, 1660–1688, and its Consequences (London, 1969), pp. 82-95, 109-10; Paul D. Halliday, Dismembering the Body Politic: Partisan Politics in England’s Towns 1650–1730 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 189-236.

6 David Allen, ‘The Political Function of Charles II’s Chiffinch’, Huntingdon Library Quarterly 39 (1976), pp. 277-90; Basil Duke Henning (ed.), The House of Commons 166–1690 (3 vols, London, 1983), vol. II, p. 57; H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison eds, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (61 vols, Oxford, 2004) [hereafter ODNB], vol. XI, pp. 413-14. Unless stated otherwise, information on offices in the royal household can be found at the online Database of Court Officers (http://courtofficers.ctsdh.luc.edu/) [accessed 20 June 2019].

7 First Hall Book, p. 37.

8 Commons 1660–1690, vol. II, pp. 428-9; ODNB, vol. XXIII, pp. 255-7.

9 J. P. Hore, The History of the Royal Buckhounds (Newmarket, 1895), pp. 149-83; Commons 1660–1690, vol. II, p. 20.

10 Royal Archives, Windsor Castle [hereafter RA], GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 13; Charles Dalton (ed.), English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661–1714 (6 vols, London, 1892-1904), vol. II, p. 38; William Vaughan-Lewis and Maggie Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court: The Potts Family of Mannington, Norfolk 1584–1737 (Lavenham, 2009), pp. 372-81.

11 J. C. Sainty, Officers of the Exchequer (List and Index Society, XVIII, 1983), p. 131; Commons 1660–1690, vol. I, p. 526.

12 TNA, E 351/3452.

13 William Bazeley, ‘History of Prinknash Park’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 7 (1882-3), pp. 267-306, pp. 292, 297-8, 306.

14 Cyril Hughes Hartmann, The King’s Friend: A Life of Charles Berkeley, Viscount Fitzhardinge, Earl of Falmouth (1630–1665) (London, 1951), pp. 84-90, 189, 191, 198, 201; TNA, SP 29/65, fols. 169-170.

15 Calendar of Treasury Books (32 vols, London, 1904-57), vol. II, pp. 294, 312, 315, 563; vol. III, pp. 810, 839-40, 1076, 1106; vol. IV, pp. 53, 700; vol. VI, p. 316; vol. VII, pp. 741, 1005; TNA, PRO 30/24/37/29, rot. 17v; SP 44/14, fo. 94v.

16 Calendar of Treasury Books, vol. II, pp. 230, 428, 430, 435, 443; vol. III, p. 503; vol. VI, p. 726; vol. VII, p. 641.

17 TNA, PROB 11/444/440.

18 Calendar of Treasury Books, vol. VIII, pp. 1293, 1303, 1817-18.

19 St George’s Chapel Archives, Windsor Castle, XV.58.E.49(2); TNA, SP 44/334, p. 2.

20 RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 131; TNA, PROB 11/445/465.

21 George C. Williamson, Trade Tokens Issued in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols, London, 1889-91), vol. I, p. 40; TNA, PROB 11/479/414.

22 H.M. Colvin (ed.), The History of the King’s Works (6 vols, London, 1963-82), vol. V, pp. 318, 325, 327, 330, 479.

23 First Hall Book, p. 48.

24 First Hall Book, pp. 41-3.

25 Berks. RO, WI/D262/1; London Gazette (no. 2009, 16-19 February 1685).

26 RA, GEO/ADD/52/1, p. 49; GEO/ADD/52/2, pp. 14, 140; Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham, 88/9/16.

27 RA, GEO/ADD/52/1, p. 31.

28 Hore, History of the Royal Buckhounds, p. 179; Julian Munby, ‘The Early Career of James Grahme of Levens, 1650–1692’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, series 2, 98 (1998), pp. 183-205, pp. 188-90.

29 RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, pp. 142, 152.

30 John Yonge Akerman (ed.), Moneys Received and Paid for Secret Services of Charles II and James II (Camden Society, LII, 1851), p. 91; Jane Roberts, Royal Landscape: The Gardens and Parks of Windsor (New Haven and London, 1997), pp. 153-4.

31 TNA, WORK 6/1, ff. 22, 24-26, 27, 30v-31, 33v, 36.

32 TNA, SC 6/CHASI/61.

33 Nicola Smith, ‘Frogmore House before James Wyatt’, Antiquaries Journal 65 (1985), pp. 402-26; Roberts, Royal Landscape, pp. 212-13.

34 TNA, E 367/3334; E 367/3448.

35 TNA, WORK 6/112; Roberts, Royal Landscape, pp. 262, 566 (n. 8); Berks. RO, D/EN/013/1.

36 First Hall Book, pp. 38, 39, 40, 41; Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 202, 203v.

37 St George’s Chapel, XV.1.9(b); XV.1.10(a)-(b); XVI.3.4(9); XV.27.60(2) (a)-(b).

38 Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds, HA 507/4/88; St George’s Chapel, XV.58.E.49(2)-(6); The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (2 vols, London, 1828), vol. II, p. 340.

39 St George’s Chapel, XI.N.4-5; XI.N.7; XI.N.9; Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, New Haven, Osborn b159, licence to William Chiffinch, 10 Dec. 1684.

40 TNA, SP 44/335, pp. 12-13.

41 Roberts, Royal Landscape, pp. 276, 568 (n. 26); Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Hayton (eds), The House of Commons 1690–1715 (5 vols, London, 2002), vol. IV, p. 77.

42 TNA, T 4/6, p. 389. This excludes the other obvious James Bridgeman, a son of Sir James Bridgeman of Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire. He was an officer in the Coldstream Guards. He however was still alive in June 1692, when he was commanding that regiment in Flanders, although he was killed only a few weeks later. W. Harry Rylands (ed.), The Visitation of the County of Warwick (London, Harleian Society, LXII, 1911), p. 15; Dalton, English Army Lists, vol. I, pp. 167, 194, 231, 247, 317; vol. II, pp. 21, 114, 130; vol. III, p. 239; Daniel MacKinnon, Origins and Services of the Coldstream Guards (2 vols, London, 1833), vol. I, p. 216; vol. II, pp. 302, 462-3; TNA, PROB 11/417/113.

43 Joseph Lemuel Chester (ed.), The Marriage, Baptismal, and Burial Registers of the Collegiate Church or Abbey of St Peter, Westminster (London, 1876), p. 228; TNA, PROB 11/405/189.

44 TNA, E 351/3453, rot. 6; WORK 6/112, report, 5 February 1687.

45 The Statutes of the Realm (10 vols, London, 1810-28), vol. V, p. 754.

46 Roberts, Royal Landscape, pp. 19-20, 332.

47 TNA, SP 29/21, f. 109; RA, GEO/ADD/52/1, pp. 77-8.

48 This had been a problem in Westminster. J. F. Merritt, The Social World of Early Modern Westminster (Manchester and New York, 2005), pp. 131-2.

49 The Victoria History of the County of Berkshire (4 vols, London, 1906-24), vol. III, p. 59. The Court of the Verge claimed the right to hear trepass cases involving royal servants within twelve miles of wherever the monarch was residing. Its more recent powers as the Palace Court over all personal actions within twelve miles of Whitehall did not apply to any part of Berkshire.

50 Bodleian Library [hereafter Bodleian], Oxford, MS Ashmole 1126, f. 109.

51 Bodleian, MS Ashmole 1115, ff. 31, 86v; David Hughson, London (6 vols, London, 1805-9), vol. V, pp. 424-5.

52 Bodleian, MS Ashmole 1115, f. 86v.

53 First Hall Book, pp. 17, 20.

54 RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 153.

55 E. P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters (London, 1975), p. 40.

56 For examples from the 1630s, see Daniel C. Beaver, Hunting and the Politics of Violence before the Civil War (Cambridge, 2008), pp. 109, 112, 116.

57 George Hammersley, ‘The Revival of the Forest Laws under Charles I’, History 45 (1960), pp. 86-7.

58 Beaver, Hunting, pp. 89-124.

59 First Hall Book, pp. 36, 37.

60 TNA, C66/3144, mm. 7-8; C66/3221, mm. 19-20; LR 5/34, receipt, 29 Nov. 1678; The Reports of Sir Bartholomew Shower (2 vols, London, 1708-20), vol. II, pp. 344-5.

61 Journal of the House of Commons, vol. IX, pp. 658, 662; The History and Proceedings of the House of Commons (14 vols, London, 1742-4), vol. I, 384.

62 Anchitell Grey (ed.), Debates of the House of Commons (10 vols, London, 1769), vol. VIII, pp. 72-3.

63 Journal of the House of Commons, vol. X, pp. 164, 209, 210.

64 RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 117.

65 RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 147.

66 TNA, LR 3/2, ff. 4, 12; RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, pp. 130, 164, 177.

67 Raymond South, Royal Castle, Rebel Town: Puritan Windsor in Civil War & Commonwealth (Buckingham, 1981); Brindle (ed.), Windsor Castle, pp. 204-5.

68 First Hall Book, p. 40; RA, GEO/ADD/52/2, p. 9.

69 Andrew Barclay, ‘The Impact of King James II on the Departments of the Royal Household’, (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1994), pp. 4-35.

70 Mark Goldie (ed.), The Entring Book of Roger Morice (7 vols, Woodbridge, 2007-9), vol. III, p. 32. For the King’s arrival, see London Gazette (no. 2058, 6-10 Aug. 1685).

71 First Hall Book, p. 46; Commons 1660–1690, vol. I, pp. 130-2; vol. II, p. 427.

72 First Hall Book, pp. 47, 48.

73 First Hall Book, p. 48. The government officials were Sir Robert Wright (Baron of the Exchequer), Francis Gwyn (Treasury Secretary for Irish Business), John Mounsteven (Under Secretary of State), Adam Colclough (Surveyor of the Greenwax), Richard Manlove (Warden of the Fleet Prison), Edward Hooton (musician and former Page of the Bedchamber), George Mann (Page of the Bedchamber), Anthony Meeke (Sewer of the Chamber), James St Amand (Apothecary), Richard Warre (former Under Secretary of State), Thomas Charnock (Sergeant at Arms), Robert Brady (Physician to the King), James Pearce (Sergeant Surgeon), Sir Joseph Seymour (Gentleman of the Privy Chamber), William Blathwayte (Secretary at War) and Sir Stephen Fox (First Clerk of the Greencloth). The army officers were Thomas Salusbury, Sidney Godolphin, John James, Sackville Tufton, Lord Hunsdon, John Seymour, Henry Cope and, less certainly, Charles Molloy. Sir Francis Wheeler was a naval officer.

74 First Hall Book, pp. 51, 55, 61.

75 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 208v, 210v, 211v, 216v.

76 TNA, ADM 78/1, newsletter, 19 July 1681; The True Protestant Mercury (no. 56, 16-20 July 1681); The Impartial Protestant Mercury (19-22 July 1681). The statement in the latter report that the Talbot Inn had been destroyed was probably an error for the George Inn. David Lewis (with Derek Keene), Windsor and Eton (Oxford, 2015), pp. 62, 73.

77 London Gazette (no. 1635, 18-21 July 1681).

78 Wyndham Anstis Bewes, Church Briefs (London, 1896), p. 288; E. L. Jones, S. Porter and M. Turner, A Gazetteer of English Urban Fire Disasters, 1500–1900 (Historical Geography Research Series, no. 13, August 1984), p. 18, table 3.

79 The Loyal Protestant (no. 190, 5 August 1682).

80 Moneys Received and Paid for Secret Services, p. 66.

81 Lewis, Windsor and Eton, pp. 64, 65-6, 73-4.

82 Lewis, Windsor and Eton, pp. 39-40.

83 First Hall Book, pp. 50, 53, 54.

84 First Hall Book, pp. 26-7, 34

85 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 214v, 218v.

86 First Hall Book, p. 55; Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 214v.

87 First Hall Book, p. 54; Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 215, 219.

88 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 215, 219.

89 TNA, PROB 11/393/397.

90 First Hall Book, pp. 10, 47.

91 TNA, E 112/594, no. 356; E 133/48/21; Hampshire Record Office, Winchester, DC/G21/1-4. The Barons of the Exchequer seem never to have ruled on this case. It was perhaps abandoned after many of the plaintiffs lost their positions on the fall of James II.

92 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, f. 215.

93 British Library, Add. MS 38140, ff. 81, 87v, 88; Charles Bailey (ed.), Transcripts from the Municipal Archives of Winchester (Winchester and London, 1856), pp. 154-5.

94 Maurice Howard, ‘Classicism and Civic Architecture in Renaissance England’,, in Lucy Gent (ed.), Albion’s Classicism (New Haven and London, 1995) pp. 29-49; James Schmiechen and Kenneth Carls, The British Market Hall: A Social and Architectural History (New Haven and London, 1999), p. 7.

95 Christopher Morris (ed.), The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (London, 1947), p. 39.

96 Wren Society (20 vols, Oxford, 1924-43), vol. XVIII, pp. 39-40, 187, plate VI.

97 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, ff. 214v, 216v.

98 ODNB, vol. XIX, p. 742; Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 (4th edn, New Haven and London, 2008), pp. 378-9.

99 Michael Bullen, John Crook, Rodney Hubbuck and Nikolaus Pevsner, Hampshire: Winchester and the North (New Haven and London, 2010), pp. 627-8; T. M. M. Baker, London: Rebuilding the City after the Great Fire (Chichester, 2000), p. 34.

100 The entry seems to be even less legible than it was when Shelagh Bond transcribed it in the 1960s and Wren’s name is no longer visible. Berks. RO, WI/AC1/1/1, p. 140; First Hall Book, p. 68. Tighe and Davis, who saw it in the mid-nineteenth century, paraphrased it as saying that ‘the corporation ordered that the building should be finished under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren’. Annals, vol. II, p. 423.

101 First Hall Book, pp. 66-8.

102 Pamela Marson and Brigitte Mitchell, Windsor Guildhall (Windsor, 2011, reprinted 2015), pp. 7-8.

103 The Royal Windsor Guide (‘new edition, enlarged and revised’, Windsor, 1841), pp. 12-13.

104 First Hall Book, p. 54.

105 Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, f. 216v

106 First Hall Book, p. 60; Berks. RO, WI/FA1/2, f. 217v.

107 Halliday, Dismembering the Body Politic, pp. 237-62; Tim Harris, Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy (London, 2006), pp. 232-5; Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven and London, 2009), pp. 157-9, 161, 184; and especially Scott Sowerby, Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Cambridge, Mass. 2013), pp. 117-52.

108 George Duckett (ed.), Penal Laws and Test Act (London, 1883), pp. 258-9; Commons 1660–1690, vol. I, p. 526.

109 Barclay, ‘Impact’, pp. 148-62.

110 A Proclamation for Restoring Corporations to their Ancient Charters, Liberties, Rights and Franchises (1688).

111 First Hall Book, pp. 62-5.

112 First Hall Book, pp. 73, 74.

113 Kingston History Centre, Kingston upon Thames, KA 1/29. For Legge, see Commons 1660–1690, vol. II, p. 727. Thomas Agar who was appointed Mayor under the 1685 charter was not Thomas Agar (1641-1687), Carver to Catherine of Braganza and Surveyor of the Woods. John T. Shawcross, The Arms of the Family: The Significance of John Milton’s Relatives and Associates (Lexington, Kentucky, 2004), pp. 59-61, 226 (n. 114).

114 TNA, SP 44/336, p. 166.

115 Kingston History Centre, KB 1/1, pp. 86, 89, 94.

116 TNA, SP 44/336, pp. 111-12.

117 Levin, Charter Controversy, pp. 54-5.

118 Alfred B. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London (2 vols, London, 1908-13), vol. II, pp. 109-15.

119 Sir Robert Vyner (Goldsmith to the King), Sir John Moore (Gentleman of the Privy Chamber), Sir Benjamin Bathurst (Treasurer to the Duke of York) and James St Amand (Apothecary to the King). Vyner and Moore, both former Lord Mayors, had been Aldermen before 1683. Three men, Sir William Turner, Sir Basil Firebrace and Thomas Rodbard, had formerly held court offices.

120 Merritt, Social world of early modern Westminster, pp. 87-101; J. F. Merritt, Westminster 1640–60 (Manchester and New York, 2013), pp. 173-7.

121 Entring Book of Roger Morice, vol. IV, p. 237.

122 Robert H. George, ‘The Charters Granted to English parliamentary Corporations in 1688’, English Historical Review 55 (1940), pp. 48-9; John Childs, The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution (Manchester, 1980), pp. 111, 118n; Andrew M. Coleby, Central Government and the Localities: Hampshire 1649–1689 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 175; David Roberts, ‘Governing Winchester 1638–88: The Politics of a Seventeenth-Century Corporation’, Southern History 36 (2014), pp. 76-81.

123 Mauro Hernández, ‘Forging Nobility: The Construction of a Civic Elite in Early Modern Madrid’, Urban History 27 (2000), pp. 165-88.

124 This is implied by John P. Spielman, The City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court (West Lafayette, Indiana, 1993), pp. 39-40.

125 Mathieu da Vinha, ‘L’intendant de Versailles au XVIIe siècle: un administrateur au service du château et la ville’, Revue de l’Histoire de Versailles 91 (2009), pp. 84-5. This example was drawn to my attention by Anne Byrne.

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Notes on contributors

Andrew Barclay

Andrew Barclay

Andrew Barclay is a Senior Research Fellow with the 1640–1660 Commons Section of the History of Parliament Trust. As well as writing numerous articles on many different aspects of the Stuart courts of the late seventeenth century, he is the author of Electing Cromwell (2011) and is one of the editors of the forthcoming OUP edition of The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. He serves on the Committee of the Society.