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Saye What?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mark A. Kishlansky
Affiliation:
University of Chicago

Abstract

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Communications
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 British Library, E 811 (2), p. 53.

2 Richardson, R. C., The debate on the English revoluion (2nd edn, 1989)Google Scholar.

3 Adamson, J. S. A., ‘The peerage in politics, 1645–49’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; The Vindiciae veritatis and the Political Creed of Viscount Saye and Sele’, Historical Research, LX (1987), 4553Google Scholar; The English nobility and the projected settlement of 1647’, Historical Journal, XXX, 3 (1987), 567602Google Scholar; ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’, in Morrill, J. S. (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1990)Google Scholar; ‘Parliamentary management, men-of-business and the house of lords, 1640–49’, in Jones, Clyve (ed.), A pillar of the constitution: the house of lords in British politics 1640–1784 (1989), pp. 2150Google Scholar; The baronial context of the English civil war’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XL (1990)Google Scholar.

4 Adamson, , ‘Parliamentary management’, p. 31Google Scholar.

5 Adamson, , ‘The baronial context of the English civil war’, Cambridge University Library, Thirlwall Prize Box 14, pp. 1011Google Scholar. Though much is made of Essex's ambition to be high constable, there does not appear to be any direct evidence offered for it other than a suggestion made by the Venetian ambassador. There is certainly no evidence offered for the contention that it was ‘part of a political campaign, directed by Essex, to confer upon him protectorial rank and power’, p. 11.

6 For Saye's, role in the establishment of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, ‘Parliamentary management, men-of-business and the house of lords, 1640–49’, p. 34Google Scholar; for his role in the self-denying ordinance and the New Model, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’, pp. 62 ff.; for the Heads of Proposals and the Four Bills, ‘The English nobility and the projected settlement of 1647’, pp. 579, 584 ff.

7 In the standard political histories of the period, Saye has received little attention. Gardiner's index lists 9 entries for all four volumes; Underdown's contains 16 entries; Fletcher's 23; Hexter's 8; and my own 4. Gardiner, S. R., History of the Great Civil War (4 vols., 1901)Google Scholar; Underdown, D., Pride's purge (Oxford 1970)Google Scholar; Fletcher, Anthony, The outbreak of the English Civil War (1981)Google Scholar; Hexter, J. H., The reign of King Pym (Cambridge, MA., 1941)Google Scholar; Kishlansky, M. A., The rise of the New Model Army (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar.

8 ‘English nobility’, pp. 591, 594, 590 n. 163, 575, 593, 593.

9 Ibid. pp. 581, 593.

10 Ibid. pp. 575 n. 56, 590 n. 163; 575 as ‘old friend’ and 590 n. 163 as ‘close friend’; 592 n 170.

11 Ibid. pp. 574; 592, 590; 574, 589, 601.

12 Ibid. pp. 574, 583, 591, 592.

13 Ibid. pp. 573; 582, 576; 574; 571.

14 In the ‘English nobility’ the Saye-Northumberland group is explicitly mentioned 24 times. It is described as consisting of Northumberland, Denbigh, Salisbury, Wharton and Saye, though the connexions between and among these peers are never described.

15 ‘English nobility’, p. 573, n. 44.

16 Ibid. pp. 589, 593.

17 Ibid. p. 572. The nature of Wharton's role in Ireton's selection for Appleby is not specified. Whether Wharton traditionally nominated to the borough, whether he simply sent a commendatory letter, or just allowed his name to be associated with Ireton's is unknown. Ireton was selected at Appleby on 27 October, 1645; Wharton was in Scotland at St Andrews until at least 18 October; Jones, G. M. Trevallyn, Saw-Pit Wharton (1967), p. 97Google Scholar. The full quotation from the source that provides the basis of this relationship is: ‘I know many here have a good opinion of the Lord Wharton, and the rather for that he hath brought you [Ireton], Mr Lawrence, and Mr Sallaway into the House.’ E 391 (9). A Fourth Word to the Wise, p. 2. Whatever role Wharton may have had in Ireton's selection in 1645, it is hard to see how it created the kind of dependence that Adamson assumes existed in 1647.

18 ‘Engish nobility’, p. 580.

19 LJ, IX, 375, 385–6.

20 ‘English nobility’, p. 577.

21 ‘At night the earl of Northumberland, the Lord Saye, the Lord Wharton and other Lords; the Speaker and members of the House of Commons aforesaid [i.e. those who had fled London] with Sir Thomas Fairfax and many principal officers of the Army, met at Syon House to consult what was advisable to do at that juncture’ (Firth, C. H. (ed.), The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (Oxford, 1894), I, 162)Google Scholar. The Perfect Diurnal gives the number of members of the house of commons alone as ‘about a hundred’. E 518 (16). Perfect Diurnal, no. 210 (3–9 08 1647), p. 1688Google Scholar.

22 ‘English nobility’, p. 576, where the seven are named, and p. 586 for Saye as co-author.

23 Ibid. p. 594.

24 CJ, V, 416. For additions to the committee, CJ, v, 439, 457. When the Declaration of No Addresses was finally debated on 11 February it occasioned two divisions in which neither Fiennes nor Pierrepont appeared as tellers. Adamson's assertion that Pierrepont drafted this declaration is based on a misreading. The Vindiciae veritatis states that Pierrepont drafted the reply to the Scots Commissioners of 1646 not the Declaration of 1648. E 811 (2). Vindiciae veritatis, pt. ii, p. 77. Also see below, note 30.

25 ‘English nobility’, p. 592. ‘Mr Miles Corbett proceeded in the report from the Committee appointed to examine the force and violence upon the houses’, CJ, v, 316; ‘This committee…are appointed to prepare a Declaration…and the care of this business is more particularly referred to Mr Selden’. CJ, v, 322.

26 ‘English nobility’, p. 599. Bodl. Lib. Tanner MSS 58, fo. 783. None of the sources cited can support the contention that Saye or Cromwell manipulated Ashhurst. Underdown observes that this was a story circulating in 1648. He provides the proper references and the necessary scepticism. Pride's Purge, p. 89.

27 ‘English nobility’, p. 574, n. 47. On 10 February 1644 Saye wrote to Lenthall asking for special consideration for Hugh Awdeley, clerk of the Court of Wards, who had been sequestered from his office until he completed payment of a £3,000 fine. Saye had been ordered by the house of lords to resume sitting in wards, where he was master, and needed an order to allow Awdeley to serve in the court. The exception had to be voted in the house of commons and then certified by John Goodwin, chairman of the Committee of Petitions. Thus Saye writes to Lenthall: ‘Sir I cannot sit in the court though I am commanded by an order from the Lords' House for want of a clerk. I pray you will yourself call for a petition and an order anexed which is in Mr Goodwin's hand and let it be read this morning that I may sit one day while the term lasts.’ Bodl. Lib., Tanner MSS 62, fo. 555. There is no reason to suggest a friendship between Saye and Goodwin based on this letter, which also forms the basis of even larger claims in ‘Parliamentary management’, pp. 32–3. In fact, Saye did not secure an exception for this clerk. Awdeley's sequestration was removed three months later when it appears he discharged his fine. CJ, III, 474.

28 ‘English nobility’, p. 594.

29 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland MS, O. I. 2 (f): Northumberland to Potter, 24 June 1645.

30 This appears to be based on a misreading of Vindiciae veritatis, which states that Pierrepont drafted a 1646 response to the Scots Commissioners. E 811 (2). Vindiciae veritatis, pt. II, p. 77.

31 E 405 (15). Moderne Intelligencer, no. 3. How this quotation leads to the conclusion that the earl of Kent had joined the Saye-Northumberland group is unfathomable.

32 ‘English nobility’, p. 593; Robert Pierrepont married Elizabeth Evelyn in 1658. Evelyn, H., The history of the Evelyn family (1915), p. 506Google Scholar.

33 ‘English nobility’, pp. 575, n. 56; 590, n. 163. The existence of a Lincoln's Inn network ‘associated with Saye and Wharton’ of which Lenthall was supposedly a member is not established by Adamson. Over 70 members of the house of commons in 1648 had attended Lincoln's Inn.

34 ‘English nobility’, p. 582.

35 Ibid. p. 593.

36 CJ, v, 348. The other important point to be made here is that a member who is identified as reporting a conference or a bill, as Swynfyn does in this case, is not necessarily the chairman of the committee or the person responsible for ‘managing it’. Though this is sometimes the case it is dangerous to generalize from this single piece of information.

37 CJ, v, 46. There is no reference provided for the contention that this was Evelyn, as the documentation offered appears to relate to Saye's friendship with Fleetwood. On this point the citation, BL, Add. MSS 37344, fo. 56, is unusual, for the only mention of Fleetwood there is ‘The General commanded a select counsel: Cromwell, Ireton, Lambert, Fleetwood and myself [i.e. Bulstrode Whitelocke] to consult about disposing part of the Army to several places’. Saye is not mentioned. This comment can also be found printed in Whitelocke, Bulstrode, Memorials of English affairs (4 vols., 1853), II, 44Google Scholar.

38 The nomination of Sir Francis Ryvett to be governor of St Nicholas Hospital passed the Lords on 23 December 1646, LJ, VIII, 624. It did not pass the Commons until 27 May 1647, CJ, v 187.

39 ‘English nobility’, p. 594.

40 The Tower of London Letterbooks of Sir Lewis Dyve’, ed. Tibbutt, H. G.Publ. Bedfs. Hist. Rec. Soc., XXXVIII (1958), pp. 87–8Google Scholar. Nowhere in this letter is the house of lords or any individual Lord mentioned. Parliament as a generic institution is mentioned eleven times.

41 ‘English nobility’, p. 581.

42 For Fairfax as a relation of the earls of Mulgrave, living and dead, ‘English nobility’, pp. 579; 595. n. 195; 589.

43 ‘English nobility’, p. 581. How the earl of Manchester became a member of the Saye-Northumberland group will be examined later. How the Saye-Northumberland group manipulated Manchester's dinner invitations is not explained.

44 E 404 (12). Perfect Weekly Account, no. 34 (18–24 08 1647)Google Scholar. Though Adamson makes much of the implications of a dinner that never actually took place, he ignores the implication of one that did. The same newsbook reported later in the week that the king dined ‘with the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Manchester, and many other Lords’.

45 ‘English nobility’, p. 596. It was not Saye's bill on religion that was scheduled to be debated that day, but the report of the Commons' own committee, which had been reporting weekly since 30 September on the propositions on religion to be sent to the king. CJ, v, 321, 327, 332.

46 Although this letter is cited as BL, Sloane MS 1519, fo. 80, that is obviously incorrect. It is listed as item 80 in the Sloane catalogue but is actually fo. 160 in the manuscript. In any event it is printed in Abbott, W. C., The letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Cambridge, MA.: 19371947), I, 510Google Scholar. Contrary to Adamson's assertions, there is no indication that the letter was written in the morning, that Cromwell acted as a teller in the ‘afternoon’, that the division was over ‘comprehension’, or that this bill had come from the Lords. CJ, v, 332.

47 Abbott, , Letters and speeches, I, 431; 646Google Scholar. While it might be possible to demonstrate personal connexions between Cromwell and Howard and Mulgrave, the sources that Adamson cites do not suggest these connexions. In an argument so heavily based upon influence and manipulation it is vital that connexions are securely proven before assertions based upon their existence are made.

48 ‘English nobility’, pp. 595–6, n. 197. This letter was written ‘near ten at night’ after a very long sitting in the Commons. The citation to BL, Add. MS 4186, fo. 14, is very odd. This is a volume of eighteenth-century transcripts of Cromwell letters. The letter is printed in Abbott, , Letters and speeches I, 577–8Google Scholar.

49 ‘English nobility’, p. 598, n. 214.

50 BL, Add. MS 37344, fo. 20 v. Adamson appears to have difficulty using Whitelocke's diary to substantiate political meetings. In ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’ much is made of a meeting at Essex House that Adamson claims took place in December 1644 and was part of Essex's attempt to foil Saye's strategy of the self-denying ordinance. The meeting that he cites, however, took place a year later.

51 The assertion that the Court of Requests was used for clandestine political meetings cannot be supported, as Adamson attempts to do, by citing E 399 (14), p. 6, where Holies makes it clear that his meeting with the earl of Rutland was accidental.

52 ‘English nobility’, p. 592. While there is no reason to doubt that father and son met frequently, the source upon which Adamson relies for his evidence does not specify that Nathaniel Fiennes came from the Commons' chamber to the Court of Requests, nor does it suggest that the meetings between Wharton and Fiennes were frequent. E 411 (23). Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 6 (19–26 10 1647), pp. 43–4Google Scholar.

53 E 411 (23). Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 6 (19–26 10 1647), pp. 43–4Google Scholar. Wharton acquired the sobriquet ‘Saw-Pit’ from his alleged cowardice at Edgehill while Nathaniel Fiennes had been saved by the council of war from being executed after the surrender of Bristol. Remarkably, this citation is later used to establish the fact that Wharton and Cromwell were meeting regularly and that these meetings were an indication of ‘Cromwell's political cooperation with the peers’. ‘English nobility’, pp. 495, 496, n. 197.

54 Though this document is consistently cited to Bodl. Lib., MS Dep. c. 168 (Nalson papers), fos. 35–43, it is more conveniently printed in LJ, IX, 385. It is described as the peers' or Lords' declaration in ‘English nobility’, pp. 578, n. 75; 579 text and n. 85; 581, and as the declaration of the Saye–Northumberland group on page 581.

55 ‘English nobility’, p. 580.

56 CJ, v, 268. The citation to the proceedings that afternoon has nothing to do with a declaration thanking the army, but with the far more contentious question of nullifying all of the votes taken in the members' absence, which was not deferred indefinitely, but only until the next morning (CJ, v, 269). Moreover, the assertion that ‘Wharton and Fairfax's cousin, the earl of Mulgrave, were despatched to thank the Lord General for his timely intervention’ is misleading. Fairfax was actually outside the door of the Lords' chamber waiting to be ushered in, where the whole house gave him thanks, as did the whole house of commons. LJ, IX, 375; CJ, V, 268.

57 ‘English nobility’, p. 583. CJ, V, 311.

58 ‘English nobility’, p. 584.

59 CJ, V, 314.

60 CJ, V, 314–15. They were titles of honour, the great seal, the abolition of bishops and the sale of their land, the abolition of deans and chapters, and the nullification of oaths and declarations against parliament.

61 CJ, V, 321.

62 CJ, V, 321. This was brought up to the Lords by Sir Robert Pye. LJ, IX, 456.

63 LJ, IX, 460; CJ, V, 327.

64 CJ, V, 332–3.

65 ‘English nobility’, p. 585.

66 Ibid. p. 586; LJ, IX, 483. They had been ‘introduced’ by the Commons two weeks earlier. LJ, IX, 460.

67 LJ, IX, 483.

68 Ibid. p. 572.

69 Ibid. p. 579.

70 Ibid. p. 579. In fact there is no reason to believe that the ‘formal business’ of the commissioners was completed on 18 July or that Wharton expected to learn much on the 19th. Sir Thomas Fairfax's letter, which Adamson cites in support of this assertion, simply states that the army asked the commissioners to forward a paper, and Nottingham and Wharton had already informed the house of lords that the Heads of the Proposals would not be ready for ‘five or six days’. ‘English nobility’, p. 572, n. 34. Despite the citation to the MS, the Fairfax letter is printed in Bell, Robert, Memorials of the Civil War (2 vols., 1849), I, 371–2Google Scholar. The commissioners' letter to the Lords is LJ, IX, 339.

71 ‘English nobility’, pp. 578–9. Adamson offers no evidence that Wildman was a member of a subcommittee that debated the proposals.

72 ‘English nobility’, p. 574, n. 53.

73 Ibid. p. 575.

74 There is also no reason to believe Adamson's bald assertion that ‘although the earl of Nottingham was technically senior in rank, Wharton was clearly the chief parliamentary negotiator’ (‘English nobility’, p. 572, n. 33). There was no technicality about the earl of Nottingham's rank; he had been the leading commissioner since June; and he was sole author of a number of letters to the house of lords. On 12 June the Commons insisted that the number of commissioners be expanded; ‘they desire that another Lord may be appointed to go down to assist the earl of Nottingham’ (LJ, IX, 260). Wharton was not made a commissioner until 26 June (LJ, IX, 296).

75 ‘English nobility’, p. 572. The letters are cited by Adamson from BL, Add. MS 34253, fos, 49, 51, 54, 57–65, 71–5. All of these letters are printed, LJ, IX, 260, 261, 264, 266, 269, 277, 299, 317, 327–8, 340. The letter quoted from above is LJ, IX, 317.

76 ‘English nobility’, 579, n. 82. E 421 (19). Putney Projects, p. 15.

77 E 421 (19). Putney Projects, pp. 29, 32, 13.

78 BL, Sloane M S 1519, fo. 104.

79 Neither the Perfect Summary nor the Perfect Diurnal, the sources cited to support the contention that Wharton introduced the Proposals point by point on 20 July, suggest this even obliquely. The Diurnal's report states: ‘something further was intimated this day from the Army that the Grand Proposals are now almost finished’, while the Summary reported ‘The House of Lords received intimation of some heads of other proposals to be expected from the Army’. E 518 (8). Perfect Diurnal, no. 206 (19–26 07 1647), pp. 1668–9Google Scholar; E 5'8 (9). Perfect Summary, no. 1 (19–26 07 1647), p. 5Google Scholar. The account in the Lords Journal states that Wharton only delivered some letters (LJ, IX, 340–1).

80 E 518 (7). Perfect Occurrences, no. 29 (16–23 07 1647)Google Scholar. This also accords with the entry in the Commons Journal that ‘the debate concerning the propositions that came from the Army be proceeded in tomorrow morning’ (CJ, V, 252).

81 ‘Engish nobility’, p. 576.

82 ‘English nobility’, pp. 567–8. There are an extraordinary number of errors in Adamson's narrative of the riot as constructed from these depositions. The depositions state that Captain Musgrave and his reformadoes assailed the doors of the house of commons, not the Lords, and it was also the Commons who were treated to the cries of ‘Traitors, put them out’ (HLRO, MP (25 Sept. 1647), fo. 21). Brace was the son of a grocer, rather than a grocer himself, the man who remonstrated with him against the use of force was not a rioter, and this exchange, upon which the information that a member of parliament was directing the action is based, took place well away from the houses in Water Lane (MP 25 Sept. 1647), fos. 23–4.

83 ‘English nobility’, pp. 567–8. Since two of the three things that Brace was reported to have said were demonstrably false, it is not clear why the third, that a member of the Commons was directing the riots, should be taken not only as true but to provide ‘clear evidence that the riots were carefully organized and directed by disaffected M.P.s.’ Brace's evidence certainly suggests that there was nothing careful about the organization. ‘English nobility’, p. 576, n. 64.

84 ‘English nobility’, p. 576.

85 E 518 (15). A Perfect Summary, no. 3 (2–9 08 1647)Google Scholar. It is not clear why this is referred to as a deposition as it is simply a newsbook account.

86 Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24 (letter of intell. 2 Aug. 1647).

87 ‘English nobility’, p. 576, n. 71.

88 Latimers was a transit stop for the royal entourage both when the king left Bedford for Woburn on 24 July and when he left Wobur for Stoke on 31 July. All of the newsbooks mention the king at Woburn during this week, e.g. ‘July 29…the King is still at Woburn Abbey’. E 518(10). Perfect Occurrences, no. 30 (23–30 07 1647)Google Scholar.

89 ‘English nobility’, p. 577.

90 Ashburnham, John, A Narrative (1830), II, 92Google Scholar.

91 Firth, C. H. (ed.), The memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (2 vols., Oxford, 1894), I, 162Google Scholar.

92 E 518 (16). Perfect Diurnal, no. 210 (3–9 08 1647), p. 1688Google Scholar.

93 There are several accounts of the rendezvous on 3 Aug. including all of the newsbooks for that week. E 518 (14). Perfect Occurrences, no. 31 (30 07–6 08 1647), p. 208Google Scholar; E 518 (15). Perfect Summary, no. 3 (2–9 08 1647), p. 19Google Scholar. There is also a letter of intelligence from army headquarters dated 2 August that begins: ‘The General's headquarters are yet here at Colebrook; but this day they are intended to march to a rendezvous at Hounslow Heath’ (Rushworth, John, Historical Collections (8 vols., 1721), VII, 740)Google Scholar.

94 Baker was sent to summon the missing Lords by an order of the House made late in the day on 30 July (LJ, IX, 361). Whether he was able to go to Hatfield and Hanworth on the 31st or to Hatfield on the 31st and Hanworth and 1 August makes no difference. His narration, made to the Lords on 2 August, makes clear he went to Hatfield first and did not find Saye there, though he found all of the other Lords who, in Adamson's account, were supposed to have been at Syon.

95 This is precisely the account of the meeting given by SirWaller, William, Vindication, pp. 191–2Google Scholar. Waller also helps date the meeting at Hatfield that Baker observed, for he says that the Lords left London on Thursday the 29th and then held a meeting at Hatfield in which they wrote to the earl of Manchester asking him to join them. As Baker found Manchester there, it is again likely that this meeting occurred on the 31st.

96 Moreover, there was at least one signature on the Declaration of the Members of a person who had most likely not attended either the rendezvous or the meeting. Despite Adamson's assertion, the earl of Manchester was not at Syon House, but with the earl of Warwick at Lees, and he was certainly there until at least 2 August. ‘August 2. The Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Manchester sent to the General intimating that they had quit the Houses…that their lordships were retired into Essex and intended as there should be occasion, to wait on the General.’ (E 518 (16). Perfect Diurnal, no. 210 (3–9 08 1647), p. 1686)Google Scholar. That Manchester was at Lees is corroborated in E 518 (14). Perfect Occurrences, no. 31 (30 07–6 08 1647), p. 202Google Scholar. While it is physically possible that Manchester left Lees on the 2nd and arrived in time for the meeting at Syon House the next night, there is no evidence that he did. Since all newsbooks mention the presence of the Speaker of the house of commons, their silence on the present of the Speaker of the house of lords is significant. This is not a small point, for it is on the basis of Manchester's presence at the meetings at Hatfield and Syon that Adamson asserts that ‘Manchester, an eleventh-hour convert, accepted the peers' invitation to join them at Hatfield and now threw in his lot with the Saye-Northumberland group’ (‘English nobility’, p. 576). The fact that he spent most of this time with the earl of Warwick casts considerable doubt upon this assertion.

97 ‘English nobility’, p. 574, n. 53.

98 BL, Sloane MS 1519, fo. 104.

99 ‘English nobility’, p. 575.

100 E 518 (7). Perfect Occurrences, no. 29 (16–23 07 1647)Google Scholar.

101 E 811 (2). Vindiciae veritatis, p. 91.

102 ‘English nobility’, p. 576, Bodl. Lib., MS Clarendon 30, fo. 24 (letter of intell. 2 August 1647). Adamson subsequently asserts the certainty of this meeting even more forcefully: ‘Saye had conferred with the King in person at the end of July.’ ‘English nobility’, p. 583. Interpreting this line in such a manner might well be considered reckless.

103 ‘English nobility’, p. 591.

104 Waller, , Vindication, p. 192Google Scholar. It is specifically stated that this event took place at Syon House and not at Stanwell.

105 ‘English nobility’, p. 592; E411 (23). Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 6 (19–26 10 1647), PP. 43–4Google Scholar. It is harder to understand how Nedham's categorical statement that Wharton was a tool of Cromwell could be turned into Adamson's assertion that Cromwell was a tool of Wharton.

106 E 811 (2). Vindiciae veritatis, pt. ii, p. 77.

107 ‘English nobility’, p. 593, CJ, V, 348; E 404 (12). ‘English nobility’, p. 581, Perfect Weekly Account, no. 34 (18–24 08 1647)Google Scholar.

108 ‘English nobility’, p. 597, n. 204. Beinecke Lib. Osborne MSS, Fb 155. The proper reading does much to taint the value of this evidence as Maynard was obviously trying to discredit both the Proposals and Ashburnham. I would also be far more cautious than Adamson in concluding that the second use of the term ‘kingdom's greatest enemies’ refers directly to an earlier use of a similar phrase in which Saye is specifically named. There are no folios in this manuscript and the citations given by Adamson are incorrect.

109 ‘English nobility’, p. 595; E 409 (22). Lilburne, John, The Jugglers Discovered, p. 9Google Scholar. Lilburne's point, which is too long and convoluted to extract by quotation, is that if anyone had told him that the Lords had grown honest he would not believe it until the Lords publicly repented of their conduct towards him.

110 E 423 (21). Mercurius Pragmaticus, no. 19 (18–25 01 1648)Google Scholar; ‘English nobility’, p. 601.

111 ‘English nobility’, pp. 594–5. Adamson's use of this quotation is doubly out of context. It has nothing to do with Lilburne and it was not said by Cromwell. ‘The Tower of London letterbooks of Sir Lewis Dyve’ (ed. Tibbutt, H. G.), Publ. Bedfs. Hist. Rec. Soc., XXXVIII (1958), p. 84Google Scholar.

112 I have argued at length the case for believing that it was Tate rather than Cromwell who introduced the self-denying ordinance (Rise of the Mew Model Army, pp. 28–9, and esp. p. 296, n. 12–13). In a subsequent essay, Adamson seems to accept this attribution as he claims that Tate introduced the motion in ‘Baronial context of the English civil war’, Cambridge University Library, Thirlwall Prize Box 14, p. 23.

113 ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’, p. 62.

114 Adamson, cites: ‘H.L.R.O., MS Minutes XI (22 07 1644 to 3 Mar. 1645), unfol. [Saye], Vindiciae veritatis, pp. 40–1, 53Google Scholar; Vicars, John, Magnalia Dei Anglicana, or Englands parliamentary-chronicle (1646), pp. 74–5, 130Google Scholar; and P.R.O., SP16/503, fos. 140–82.’

115 As Adamson provides no precise location in HLRO, MS Minutes XI in his citation, I can only assume that it was to be found on 9 December. All entries for the month of December 1644 have been checked but not the hundreds of other folios in a volume that begins, pace Adamson, , in 07 1644Google Scholar.

116 The citations from the Vindiciae are taken from a page that discusses the entrance of the Scots into the war in 1643 (pp. 40–1) and an attack upon the surrender of Bristol by Nathaniel Fiennes in the same year (p. 53). The reference to the ‘honorable personage’ is Vicars, pp. 74–5; page 130 covers events at the beginning of April 1645 and mentions Saye's name in a different context.

117 Curiously, Adamson repeats the story that Saye introduced the Self Denying Ordinance differently in ‘Baronial context of the English civil war’, Cambridge University Library, [Saye], Thirlwall Prize Box 14, p. 13. Here he uses only Vindiciae veritatis, p. 53 and Magnalia Dei Anglicana, pp. 74–5, 130, but states positively that the event took place on 6 December.

118 The self-denying ordinance was brought up to the house of lords from the Commons on 21 December. On 30 December a select committee of ten Lords, nearly half of those present, was appointed to consider the ordinance. Saye was not on it.

119 ‘Baronial context of the English civil war’, Cambridge University Library, Thirlwall Prize Box 14, pp. 33–4.

120 LJ, VI, 405.