'My Plundered Townes, My Houses Devastation': The Civil War and North Midlands Life, 1642 - 1646

Abstract

This article will examine the effects on life in the north midlands during the first civil war, 1642 -1646, and relate these to the absence of clubmen risings in the region. In recent years historians have offered various explanations for the risings of the neutralist clubmen in the south west and south and west midlands during 1645.2 The most recent of these goes farther and attempts to explain why there were no such risings in other areas. Simon Osborne's 1994 article in 'Mifffarnf J-{j.story, offers a multi-layered explanation for the risings in Worcestershire and for the lack of risings in neighbouring counties, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. His complex of explanations for the non-appearance of clubmen in the latter counties centres partly upon the ability of the local garrisons to maintain regular collections of taxation. This more orderly conduct was less likely to inflame local resentment which could build into anger. This argument also stresses the ability of these same garrisons to maintain order amongst themselves and overawe the local rural and urban populations. 3 Part of this paper will examine Osborne's thesis in the light of the experience of the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Rutland and Staffordshire, embracing one of the counties examined by Dr Osborne and four contingent to it. It is first necessary to present a brief narrative of the war to provide context, and then taking the counties in turn to highlight features identified by Dr Osborne. Finally the paper will turn to the question of the stability of the region in the second half of the war, the period which it might be judged would have created the right conditions for clubmen risings.The civil war in the north midlands has had to be re-assessed recently. For a considerable period it was seen as a region dominated by a collection of what were termed 'rob-carriers', referring to the supposed predilection of royalist commanders for robbing carriers, or 'former tinkers', a reference to royalist claims that Parliament's commanders were of lowly origins. As a result there has been little attempt to examine the structures of the rival organisations or to re-examine the historical narrative. Partly this is caused by the nature of the source materials. Many royalist papers were destroyed

Fleshing out a massacre: the storming of Shelford House and social forgetting in Restoration England*

“…138 Martyn Bennett, Ian Gentles and Mark Stoyle have all shown that the conflict in England could often be as vicious as anywhere else in the British Isles, particularly when aggravated by ethnic tensions. 132 Other historians remain unconvinced: John Morrill has opined as recently as 2017 that 'the civil war in England was not so very uncivilized', and that 'the number of men in arms killed in cold blood [was] very limited'; while Blair Worden has written that the 'awareness of common nationhood was a restraining bond', and that 'ties of kinship and friendship that crossed party lines held savagery back.' 133 The case study of Shelford House challenges this traditional view, at the same time as demonstrating how the social forgetting of the massacre could allow such a narrative to emerge.…”