The Corporation of Hull and the Government of James II, 1687–8

Abstract

In 1688 James II's government attempted to pack parliament by extensively remodelling local office-holding. This article uses the records of the Hull corporation, in particular a newly-discovered letterbook, to re-examine the campaign's impact on one large freeman borough. It concludes that, although government agents failed to browbeat the mayor and aldermen into nominating suitable candidates, their royally-appointed successors would almost certainly have secured the election of`right' M.P.s. By focusing on the presumed intractability of voter opinion, historians have overlooked the government's potentially far more productive intervention in the nomination process. Indeed, if Hull's experience is typical, James's campaign was by no means predestined to fail.