The City and the Court 1603-1643

Abstract

The fact that London was parliamentarian rather than royalist was one of the principal reasons for the defeat of Charles I in the English Civil War. This book reinterprets London's role. It examines the relation of the municipality and of the City fathers as business magnates with both of the early Stuart kings and their parliaments, and explores the business connections of the City with the royal court, concluding that, far from being the natural allies of the king and court as is generally assumed, the City elite had mostly been seriously alienated from them by 1640. Professor Ashton offers an interpretation not only of the City's role in the years before 1640 but also of the reasons lying behind its support for parliament in 1642. It is both a contribution to the debate on the origins of the Civil War and a study in depth of the connection between big business and politics in early Stuart England.

Mediation in Multiple Networks: Elite Mobilization before the English Civil War

“…At the center of this overseas expansion stood the merchant oligarchy whose principal business was importing highly-valued commodities from Mediterranean and Asian markets. They also formed the core of the merchant community and the political leadership of London (Ashton 1979;Pearl 1964). To control access to the rich Eastern trades, the overseas merchants secured monopoly charters from the Crown that allowed them to establish joint-stock companies for the exclusive import trade from Eastern markets to England (Chaudhuri 1965;Willan 1953Willan , 1956Wood 1935).…”

“…The adventurers who committed to different enterprises in Eastern markets and Western colonies also differed in their political allegiances. The established merchant oligarchy that dominated London's government maintained a symbiotic, though not always harmonious, relationship with the Crown (Ashton 1979). The East India Company illustrates these close ties.…”

“…Previous historical research has argued that English overseas trade was divided between new American colonial traders and a merchant elite that controlled the Eastern markets (Ashton 1979;Brenner 1993). These studies suggest that the Eastern trade ventures formed the core of a cohesive merchant leadership.…”

“…Nearly all 267 elites were London citizens. Detailed name-by-name comparisons with standard accounts of the outbreak of the Civil War suggest that few, if any, significant leaders of the City's mercantile and political elite are missing from these data (Ashton 1979;Fletcher 1981;Lindley 1997;Manning 1976;Pearl 1964).…”

‘His neighbours land mark’: William Sykes and the campaign for ‘free trade’ in civil war England

“…Challenging the traditional coupling of free trade with parliamentarianism, Robert Ashton represented the trading companies as discontented with royal government at the calling of the Long Parliament, a body which was far less hostile to their interests than its predecessors. His account indirectly supported the emerging revisionist argument that religion, rather than economic or social interests, was the key determinant of civil war allegiance. The major attempt to retain a social explanation of the war, by Robert Brenner, reverted to the traditional picture of an alliance between the crown and trading companies threatened by a hostile parliament, but for him the currents of commercial modernity flowed principally into the Atlantic, which had never effectively been tied to company regulation.…”