Subordination, solidarity and the limits of popular agency in a Yorkshire valley c. 1596-1615

Past and Present

Volumn 193, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 41-72

  Wood, Andy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34347379164     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtl011     Document Type: Review

References (126)

1. Social historians' broad sense of the political stems in particular from the influence of Keith Wrightson, 'The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England', in Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (eds.), The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 1996),
2. and Patrick Collinson, De Republica Anglorum: or, History with the Politics Put Back (Cambridge, 1990),
3. and is surveyed in Andy Wood, Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Basingstoke, 2002).
4. Mark A. Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. ix, 12, 14.
5. James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990). For uses of Scott,
6. see Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle, 'Introduction', in Griffiths, Fox and Hindle (eds.), Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, 6;
7. Michael J. Braddick and John Walter, 'Introduction. Grids of Power: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Early Modern Society', in Michael J. Braddick and John Walter (eds.), Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 2001).
8. Griffiths, Fox and Hindle, 'Introduction', 5, 6.
9. Adrian Leftwich's Redefining Politics: People, Resources and Power (London, 1983) has exerted some influence here.
10. For more on the creative friction between historical materialism and early modern social history, see David Rollison, 'Marxism', in Garthine Walker (ed.), Writing Early Modern History (London, 2005).
11. The theoretical literature on this subject is vast, but see most importantly Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (Cambridge, 1984). For two historians' stated interest in the question of 'structuration',
12. see David Levine and Keith Wrightson, The Making of an Industrial Society: Whickham, 1560-1765 (Oxford, 1991).
13. For the rejection of 'simple' polarities, see Tim Harris, 'Problematising Popular Culture', in Tim Harris (ed.), Popular Culture in England, c. 1500-1850 (Basingstoke, 1994), 16;
14. Braddick and Walter, 'Introduction', 3, 5.
15. Mark Goldie, 'The Unacknowledged Republic: Officeholding in Early Modern England', in Tim Harris (ed.), The Politics of the Excluded, c. l500-1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), 155.
16. For Scott's rejection of hegemony, see his Weapons of the Weak (New Haven, 1985), 322-4. For the usefulness of the concept of hegemony to historians,
17. see T. J. Jackson Lears, 'The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities', Amer. Hist. Rev., xc (1985).
18. I lift the term from Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class (New York, 1972).
19. Douglas Haynes and Gyan Prakash, 'Introduction: The Entanglement of Power and Resistance', in Douglas Haynes and Gyan Prakash (eds.), Contesting Power: Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia (Berkeley, 1991), 3.
20. The two main surveys of early modern social history approach social relations through this dichotomy: see Keith Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680 (London) 1982);
21. J. A. Sharpe, Early Modern England: A Social History, 1550-1760 (1987; 2nd edn, London, 1997). For a similar opposition between 'class' and 'deference',
22. see David Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603-1660 (Oxford, 1985), 5, 115, 121-2.
23. John Walter has written two of the classic studies of open social conflict: 'A "Rising of the People"? The Oxfordshire Rising of 1596', Past and Present, no. 107 (May 1985) and 'Grain Riots and Popular Attitudes to the Law: Maldon and the Crisis of 1629', in John Brewer and John Styles (eds.), An Ungovernable People? The English and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1980). For my own contribution to studies of overt conflict,
24. see Andy Wood, The Politics of Social Conflict: The Peak Country, 1520-1770 (Cambridge, 1999). For very recent studies,
25. see Steve Hindle, 'Persuasion and Protest in the Caddington Common Enclosure Dispute, 1635-1639', Past and Present, no. 158 (Feb. 1998);
26. Stephen Hipkin, '"Sitting on his Penny Rent": Conflict and Right of Common in Faversham Blean, 1596-1610', Rural Hist., xi (2000). For aspects of plebeian deference,
27. see Andy Wood, '"Poore men woll speke one days": Plebeian Languages of Deference and Dehance in England, c. 1520-1640', in Harris (ed.), Politics of the Excluded;
28. John Walter, 'Public Transcripts, Popular Agency and the Politics of Subsistence in Early Modern England', in Braddick and Walter (eds.), Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society.
29. National Archives, London, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), SP 12/256/83; SP 12/242/122; SP 12/249/41, 92; SP 12/250/131; Claire Cross, The Puritan Earl: The Life of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon, 1536-1595 (London, 1966), 241;
30. Bernard Jennings (éd.), A History of Nidderdale (Huddersfield, 1967), 382, 385. For the jurisdictional complexities of Kirkbyshire,
31. see Tom S. Gowland, 'The Honour of Kirkby Malzeard and the Chase of Nidderdale', Yorks. Archaeol. Jl, xxxiii (1936-8).
32. PRO, STAC 8/4/3.18; Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, xii, pt 2, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1891), no. 81;
33. Michael Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October 1536 (Manchester, 1996), 137-49.
34. v. For the poverty of many Nidderdale recusants,
35. see Clare Talbot, Miscellanea: Recusant Records (Catholic Records Soc., liii, London, 1961), 94-8.
36. BL, M485/18, Hatfield House Cecil Papers, 93/60.
37. For conflicts over common rights prior to Proctor's arrival, see Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, xiii, pt 2, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1893), no. 186 (2); PRO, DL 3/23/P7J PRO, STAC 5/D23/29; STAC 3/5/76; STAC 8/4/3.21; STAC 5/W38/33: depositions, 4 July 1603; STAC 5/B69/8; STAC 5/B35/34.
38. Proctor's house, Fountains Hall, was finished in 1611. It is still there, and is partially open to the public.
39. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.100-1.
40. A brief account of the conflict is to be found in Christopher Howard, Sir John Yorke of Nidderdale, 1565-1634 (London, 1939). For a full account of his impeachment,
41. see Colin G. C. Tite, Impeachment and Parliamentary Judicature in Early Stuart England (London, 1974), 64-73. For verdicts in relevant Star Chamber cases,
42. v; PRO, STAC 8/18/1.117; STAC 8/227/35.27-8; STAC 8/184/33.7; STAC 8/227/37.6; STAC 8/18/1.
43. PRO, STAC 5/D23/29: complaint of William, earl of Derby; STAC 8/19/10.7; STAC 8/19/10.16. For other complaints concerning biased or inaccurate evidence, see PRO, STAC 5/W38/33: complaint of Anthony Ward; STAC 5AV38/33: depositions, 4 July 1603.
44. r.
45. v.
46. It would be possible to write another whole article concerned with rhetorical constructions of the conflict in Nidderdale and Kirkbyshire; but that is not the purpose of this piece.
47. PRO, STAC 8/227/5.
48. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 8/227/1; STAC 8/18/1; STAC 8/184/33.
49. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.46, 100-1.
50. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.22.
51. For an example of one 'duetyfull goer to the Churche', see PRO, STAC 8/19/10.20; for a godly tenant of Sir John Yorke, see PRO, STAC 8/19/10.27.
52. PRO, STAC 8/227/7; STAC 8/227/6.14-15; STAC 8/227/35.31. For the complexity of Proctor's purchases of leases and manorial titles, see PRO, STAC 8/227/6: answer of John Armitage.
53. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 8/256/18; STAC 8/4/3.18.
54. PRO, STAC 5/W38/33; STAC 8/184/4.
55. PRO, STAC 8/227/4.30.
56. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.35; STAC 5/C25/20; STAC 5AV38/33.
57. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.73; STAC 8/227/1.75; STAC 5/C72/20. 38 PRO, STAC 8/181/9.
58. PRO, STAC 8/227/4.17-19.
59. PRO, C21/P40/14.
60. PRO, STAC 8/184/4.
61. PRO, STAC 8/184/33; Christopher Hill, 'Puritans and "the Dark Corners of the Land"', in his Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1974).
62. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.43.
63. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.16.
64. PRO, STAC 8/227/6.18-19. For the expectation that gentlemen should protect former servants, see The Papers of Sir Richard Grosvenor, 1st Bart. (1585-1645), ed. Richard Cust (Record Soc. of Lancs. and Cheshire, cxxxiv, Stroud, 1996), 33.
65. PRO, STAC 8/227/1.99-105.
66. PRO, STAC 8/184/33: deposition of James Hardcastle.
67. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.18.
68. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.40, 41.
69. PRO, STAC 5/B69/8.
70. For this association, see Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, xiii, pt 1, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1890), no. 201, piece iv. Local identities is a subject I intend to discuss more fully in future work.
71. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.56-7; STAC 8/184/33.7; STAC 8/19/10.16; STAC 8/227/35.3-4.
72. For more on elite anxieties about 'common rumour', see Andy Wood, The 1549 Rebellions and the Making of Early Modem England, Cambridge Univ. Press, forthcoming, ch. 3.
73. PRO, STAC 5/A57/5: interrogatory. For Proctor's concerns regarding the 'common voice" in Kirkbyshire and Nidderdale, see PRO, STAC 8/227/37.6; STAC 8/227/1: complaint of Sir Stephen Proctor; STAC 8/227/37.6.
74. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.101-2; STAC 8/227/4.9.
75. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.56-7; STAC 8/227/35.2; STAC 8/18/1.101-2.
76. PRO, STAC 5/A57/5; STAC 8/4/3; for a second copy of the complaint, see PRO, STAC 7/1/7.
77. For a very different, but equally politicized, use of the language of Country, see Richard Cust, 'Politics and the Electorate in the 1620s', in Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (eds.), Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603-1642 (Harlow, 1989), 148, 150, 154-5.
78. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21.
79. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.27-8.
80. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.56-7; STAC 8/19/10; STAC 8/227/35.2, 82.
81. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.42.
82. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21.
83. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.13-14.
84. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.1, 33-5; STAC 8/19/10.35; STAC 5/P14/21.
85. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 8/227/36.39-43; STAC 8/227/35.17.
86. PRO, STAC 8/184/33; STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 8/19/10.21.
87. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.7, 43.
88. PRO, STAC 5/W38/33.
89. See in particular Steve Hindle, Tower, Poor Relief, and Social Relations in Holland Fen, c. 1600-1800', Hist. Jl, xli (1998);
90. Steve Hindle, 'Exclusion Crises: Poverty, Migration and Parochial Responsibility in English Rural Communities, e.1560-1660', Rural Hist., vii (1996).
91. Such homogeneous formulations referred to 'the comon people', 'the people' and 'the comon sorte'. See, for instance, PRO, STAC 8/184/33: deposition of James Hardcastle; STAC 8/19/10.12; STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 5/A57/5: deposition of Henry Atkinson; STAC 5/C25/20.
92. PRO, STAC 8/227/3.4.
93. Jennings (ed.), History of Nidderdale, 121, 134, 470; PRO, STAC 5/D23/29: deposition of Thomas Wood.
94. PRO, STAC 8/4/3.3. For her husband's account of the same attack, see PRO, STAC 5/A57/5: deposition of Christopher Outhwaite.
95. PRO, STAC 8/181/9.
96. For attacks on Proctor's miners, see PRO, STAC 8/227/1; STAC 8/184/4; C21/P4/19.
97. PRO, STAC 5/P14/21; STAC 5/A57/5: interrogatory.
98. PRO, STAC 8/227/3.4.
99. PRO, STAC 8/227/4.32: answer of Sir John Mallory.
100. For memories of the events of 1549, see PRO, STAC 8/4/3.18, 9.
101. See, for instance, Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003).
102. PRO, STAC 5/D23/29; STAC 8/4/3.9.
103. PRO, STAC 8/227/3.4.
104. PRO, STAC 8/227/4: answer of Sir John Mallory.
105. PRO, STAC 8/4/3.2.
106. PRO, STAC 8/4/3.27, 18; STAC 8/227/4.17-19.
107. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.33-5.
108. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.13; STAC 8/227/3.6, 8.
109. PRO, STAC 8/18/1.64.
110. PRO, STAC 8/184/33.7; STAC 8/227/35.39-43.
111. For example, see PRO, STAC 8/19/10.35.
112. PRO, STAC 8/184/33; STAC 8/227/7: deposition of Thomas Gowtham. For similar material, see Alexandra Shepard, 'Honesty, Worth and Gender in Early Modern England, 1560-1640', in Henry French and Jonathan Barry (eds.), Identity and Agency in England, 1500-1800 (Basingstoke, 2004). This should not be taken as suggesting, however, that such formulations were wholly genuine; instead, what is proposed is a middle position: that tactical displays of humiliation or subordination left some mark upon their participants.
113. PRO, STAC 5/D40/9: deposition of George Atkinson.
114. PRO, STAC 8/184/33: deposition of James Hardcastle.
115. I discuss this more fully in Andy Wood, 'Fear, Hatred and the Hidden Injuries of Class in Early Modern England', Jl Social Hist., xxxix (2006).
116. PRO, STAC 5AV38/33: depositions, 4 July 1603.
117. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.63. For other examples of plebeian hatred of Sir John Yorke, see PRO, STAC 8/19/10.38-9.
118. PRO, STAC 8/19/10.35, 65.
119. Michael Adas, 'From Avoidance to Confrontation: Peasant Protest in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Southeast Asia', Comparative Studies in Society and Hist., xxiii (1981), 217.
120. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.2, 33-5; STAC 8/19/10.35.
121. PRO, STAC 8/227/35.25; STAC 8/227/1.6.
122. PRO, STAC 8/4/3.27, 18.
123. PRO, STAC 8/20/23.
124. PRO, STAC 8/227/3.4.
125. PRO, STAC 8/227/3.8.
126. Haynes and Prakash, 'Introduction', 19; Walter, 'Public Transcripts, Popular Agency and the Politics of Subsistence".