The 1663 List of Indigent Royalist Officers considered as a Primary Source for the Study of the Royalist Army

Abstract

Most of those working either in the field of royalist studies, or in county and regional research into the civil war years, have come to use, to some extent, the printed source known widely as 'The List'. For the most part, it is a document which has been mined selectively.' Yet in its entirety, this paper will argue, and subject to certain limitations which will be acknowledged, it is a useful aid to the solution of many complex problems associated with a study of royalist military activity between I642 and I66o. Indeed, it can be made to provide us with much evidence that selective and piecemeal approaches fail to bring forth. Studied in its own right, The List casts light upon issues such as the geographical distribution of active royalism in military terms, the proportion of horse to foot in the royalist armies, and the identification of heartlands of royalism, if indeed there were any. It can also tell us much about the structure and personnel of the royalist armies. No comparable source for the parliament's armies exists. Thus the evidence of The List cannot be set in any other context than in that of the study of royalism, although it may well add to the developing interest in the problem of allegiance. The List probably appeared in the spring of I663. The order for its publication was dated 4 February of that year, and its official sellers were Henry Brome in Ivy Lane and Ann Seile in Fleet Street, London. Entitled 'A List of Officers Claiming to the Sixty Thousand Pounds &c. Granted by His Sacred Majesty for the Relief of his TrulyLoyal and Indigent Party', it retailed at is. 6d. (7p). Unpaginated, the prefatory matter consisted of a two and a half page preface, a page and a few lines of advertisement, and a brief listing, two columns per page but unnumbered, of indigent field commanders colonels, lt. colonels and majors. The bulk of the text then followed, each page divided into two columns numbered I to I6o (a printers' error omitted number io7 which was given as io8, and two columns numbered I09 were included). The page of errata contained at the very end of the booklet, although itself not entirely complete, acknowledged the error in column numbering, which did not affect the sequence of the 'lists' of which the bulk of the text consisted. Following column i 6o was a comprehensive index of names citing the location of each in a specific column, called The Table. This index conformed to the misnumbered columns, and was set out three columns to a page each paginated I to 35. Errata and a brief list of names 'omitted' which followed it, were uinpaginated. The booklet size was 20 X i6 cm, and each page was closely printed, since the columns contained in excess of 5,ooo names of claimants to a share in the f6o,ooo.