Conflict Resolution and Patronage in Provincial Towns, 1590–1640

Abstract

Historians of early modern England, just like the people they study, are preoccupied with order and disorder. Particularly for the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, attention has focused on how a government and political nation whose prescriptions demanded unanimity and stability descended into civil war and revolution, the ultimate disorder. The period saw rising populations, social mobility, economic change, and religious division, all of which placed stress on the traditional order. These agents of turmoil deserve close attention. But in focusing so intently on breakdown, we tend to miss seeing how Elizabethan and early Stuart government actually worked. For most of these years, a reasonably stable and increasingly integrated royal government ruled peacefully over the English people. By shifting our attention away from breakdown, we can begin to ask critical new questions. How, precisely, did the leaders of this society work to create order in the face of difference? How did the nature of government affect the ways that people sought stability?Evidence from urban government—provincial borough corporations—provides critical insight into these questions. Civic leaders found that the best way to maintain order and authority in their own communities was by participating in the wider governing structures of the state. London's attempts at the “pursuit of stability” have received serious treatment in recent years. Provincial towns, however, have less often been studied as a means to understand the polity as a whole. They have in the past been characterized as quite insular, either abjectly dependent on a great lord or gentleman or else “independent” and unwilling to brook outside influences; they sought stability and control by looking inward, reinforcing their own authority.