Suffolk
Suffolk’s population was around 125,000 by 1642, the largest towns being Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds. Declining markets for broadcloth had led to widespread unemployment and discontent in the clothworking areas, exacerbating an economy already depressed by the plague epidemics of the 1630s.
Puritanism was particularly entrenched in the east of the county. Catholics constituted 0.3% of the local population, well below the national average. Suffolk’s gentry were in the main socially conservative Presbyterians. As such, they opposed the Bishop of Ely’s attempts to suppress godly preaching, and several went to prison rather than pay Charles I’s Forced Loan (including Suffolk’s patriarch, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston MP). Ship Money was similarly resisted. During the two Bishops’ Wars of 1639 and 1640 the Suffolk militia protested at being mobilised in order to help the King’s attempt to force episcopacy on Scotland. Local conscripts mutinied in Beccles, while Ipswich carriers refused to handle supplies for the royal army. In August 1642 rioters rampaged along the Stour Valley, vandalising the estates of Catholic gentry and suspected royalists.
Hundreds volunteered to fight for Parliament at the onset of civil war in 1642. At least one troop of Oliver Cromwell’s double-regiment of Ironsides was raised in Suffolk, as were two infantry regiments (Russell’s and Walton’s). However, aside from a small fracas near Debenham, there was no serious fighting within the county itself. Cromwell’s so-called ‘siege’ of Lowestoft in March 1643 ended after an hour with the royalists’ peaceful capitulation.
The Suffolk gentry’s enthusiasm for the parliamentarian cause declined markedly in early 1645, when radical MPs in Westminster began to drain the Eastern Association army of money and troops in order to create the New Model Army. Over the next two years they were alarmed to see the New Model mutate into an autonomous political entity. The fact that the New Model held the King in Newmarket after kidnapping him from Holdenby House brought the issue to Suffolk’s doorstep. Meanwhile, the loyalty of the common folk was being tested by crippling taxes. There was widespread dismay when Parliament voted to ban Christmas (ironically, a policy promoted by Presbyterian MPs not radical Independents). Bury St Edmunds consequently saw a serious riot on Christmas Day 1647, and an attempted royalist rising the following May. The rising was quickly suppressed, although awards made to numerous veterans after the Restoration indicate a surge in local support for the King.
The Suffolk Trained Bands nevertheless remained loyal to Parliament during the Second Civil War of 1648, and consequently played a crucial role in containing the royalist insurgency in Southeast England. Whilst half the Trained Bands guarded the roads over the Stour, the other half – around 2,000 infantry and five troops of cavalry – joined Lord Thomas Fairfax’s New Model regulars and the Essex Trained Bands in besieging royalist-occupied Colchester. The Suffolk contingent dug in around the north of the town, repulsing at least two major sorties by the royalist garrison.
Suffolk’s Presbyterians were shocked by Charles I’s execution in January 1649, but not to the extent of openly supporting his son. The Trained Bands were mobilised again in 1651, fighting alongside their Essex comrades to help Cromwell crush Charles II at the battle of Worcester.
The Suffolk bench remained a broad church during the Interregnum, even allowing some ex-royalists to sit as justices. This inclusivity appears to have continued after the Restoration, enabling one or two parliamentarian veterans to keep their pensions.
Claimants resident in the county
Numbers, types and declared allegiances of claimants
Only one Suffolk petition is known to have survived: that of a parliamentarian war widow from Sudbury. Anne Alliston’s petition, and eleven payment warrants can be found in the papers of the parliamentary county committee for Suffolk, held by The National Archives. The Suffolk Quarter Sessions order books contain the names of many maimed soldiers (although little detail regarding their wartime service), and some widows. Each quarter the Suffolk bench convened in rotation in Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Woodbridge, and Beccles; Halesworth was also used on one occasion, presumably to avoid plague. The surviving accounts of the treasurers for maimed soldiers for eastern Suffolk contain lists of pensioners from 1639 to 1652. Altogether these various documents attest to the county’s mounting catalogue of casualties during the Civil Wars.
Royalism was never strong in Suffolk but the order books after 1660 show that several local men fought for the Stuart monarchy. Gordon Blackwood has found overwhelming support for Parliament in eastern Suffolk, with allegiances more finely balanced in the west. However, the fact that the Quarter Sessions rolls are missing before 1683 – as are the treasurers’ accounts for western Suffolk – means that the details of many parliamentarian soldiers and widows have been lost, thus distorting the figures. Although order book entries frequently mention petitions, the Quarter Sessions bundles after 1683 contain only recognizances and jury lists. As with all counties, an unknown number of plebeian royalists and parliamentarians were relieved at parish level; however, as the churchwardens’ accounts for Cratfield show, even when individuals can be identified as maimed soldiers or war widows it is notoriously difficult to establish their allegiance. Repeated complaints about the growth of parish poor after the Restoration may well coincide with the termination of parliamentarian pensions. After 1667 royalist veterans found themselves competing for resources as veterans of the Second and Third Dutch Wars began to submit their own applications for relief. These pressures were particularly intense in Suffolk, as evidenced by the inability of successive treasurers for maimed soldiers to balance their books.
Gratuities paid in Suffolk
| Min | Max | Mean | Median | Mode | TOTAL | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maimed Soldiers | 1s | £16 3s 10d | £1 12s 5d | £1 | £1 | £108 9s 10d |
| Royalists | 10s | £6 13s 4d | £2 6s 10d | £2 | £2 | £51 10s |
| Parliamentarians | 1s | £16 3s 10d | £1 5s 3d | 17s | £1 | £56 19s 10d |
| War Widows | £1 | £5 | £2 6s 8d | £1 5s | £1 | £25 13s 6d |
| Royalists | £1 5s | £5 | £3 8s 4d | £4 | n/a | £10 5s 0d |
| Parliamentarians | £1 | £4 8s 6d | £1 18s 7d | £1 | £1 | £15 8s 6d |
| Other Dependents | 5s | £2 | £1 5s | £1 10s | n/a | £3 15s 0d |
| Royalists | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Parliamentarians | 5s | £2 | £1 5s | £1 10s | n/a | £3 15s 0d |
| ALL | 1s | £16 3s 10d | £1 14s 9d | £1 | £1 | £138 10s 10d |
| Royalists | 10s | £6 13s 4d | £2 9s 5d | £2 | £2 | £61 15s 0d |
| Parliamentarians | 1s | £16 3s 10d | £1 6s 11d | £1 | £1 | £76 15s 10d |
Pensions paid in Suffolk
| Min | Max | Mean | Median | Mode | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maimed Soldiers | 10s | £10 | £3 10s | £2 | £2 |
| Royalists | £1 | £10 | £4 4s 8d | £4 | £2 |
| Parliamentarians | 10s | £6 | £2 5s 9d | £2 | £2 |
| War Widows | £2 | £2 | £2 | £2 | £2 |
| Royalists | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Parliamentarians | £2 | £2 | £2 | £2 | £2 |
| Other Dependents | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Royalists | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| Parliamentarians | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 |
| ALL | 10s | £10 | £2 9s 11d | £2 | £2 |
| Royalists | £1 | £10 | £4 4s 8d | £4 | £2 |
| Parliamentarians | 10s | £6 | £2 5s 9d | £2 | £2 |
The distribution map of royalist and parliamentarian claimants in Suffolk map is compromised by the fact that less than 13% of parliamentarians can be tied down to a specific location, as opposed to over 74% of royalists. It is unsurprising that parliamentarian applicants outnumber royalists by two to one, given the county’s political and religious predilections. There is sufficient data to indicate that the Restoration authorities were far more generous to royalist veterans and widows – both in terms of gratuities and pensions – than Interregnum regimes had been to parliamentarian claimants. This may have been because there were many more parliamentarian claimants to maintain.
Further Reading
Gordon Blackwood, Tudor and Stuart Suffolk (Lancaster, 2001).
L. A. Botelho, Churchwardens’ Accounts of Cratfield 1640-1660, Suffolk Records Society vol. 42 (Woodbridge, 1999).
Clive Holmes, The Eastern Association in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 1974).
Clive Holmes (ed.), The Suffolk Committees for Scandalous Ministers 1644-1646, Suffolk Records Society vol. 13 (Woodbridge, 1970).
Alfred Kingston, East Anglia and the Great Civil War (London, 1897). This has some useful snippets, although Kingston’s works have not stood the test of time as well as those of his contemporary C. H. Firth. A facsimile edition was published by Ken Trotman in 2005.