Every year throughout the early modern period, thousands of English men and women were imprisoned for failing to pay their debts. Most were confined without trial and had little formal recourse to legal aid. They were, however, surprisingly well placed to submit petitions to alleviate or remedy the worst aspects of their experience.
Unlike the felons they were confined alongside, most debtors were drawn from the middling sorts rather than the working poor. Even though they were cash-poor this population of shopkeepers, craftsmen, professionals (regularly including lawyers), and minor gentry were literate, familiar with civic administration, and expected a degree of public sympathy which allowed them to maximise the potential of petitioning.
Courts of Quarter Sessions and civic councils were thus deluged with appeals originating in the debtors’ prisons under their purview. Much of this volume did not, however, require much effort or time to resolve. Thousands of petitions were submitted between 1649 and 1830 to apply for one of the amnesties occasionally passed by Parliament known as the Insolvency Acts. This process was formulaic as courts were only required to collect and catalogue applications; by the 1720s printed petitions were widely available which only required an applicant to fill in their name and address.
Appeals for financial aid might be similarly formulaic. Petitions for financial aid in late seventeenth-century London were almost always seeking a ‘Charitable gift of five pounds for their relief’ implying that this was a routine award which courts merely signed off on.[1] In these instances petitioning was simply a tool of bureaucracy, a method by which debtors claimed aid they were entitled to but for which they had to grovel.
“The Humble Petition of the poore prisoners in the Poultry Compter”, 1698. Image courtesy of the London Metropolitan Archives, CLA/032/01/021.Copyright of LMA and not for reproduction.
Debtors did raise more specific complaints which touched on all aspects of prison life such as broken pipes, bad ale, leaking windows, their proximity to felons, or, as at the Poultry Compter in 1698, that new toilets (‘the Jakes or House of Office’) be constructed.[2] While these necessitated an active response from the court, they were still probably simple to dispense, merely requiring a release of funds to the prison officers. This did not stop debtors couching such minor grievances in dramatic terms. The debtors of Newgate were far from unusual when in their petition to the Lord Mayor in 1742 for a new pot capable of holding twelve gallons of broth they declared that ‘most of us are So Miserable poor … wee are in A Manner Burried Alive’.[3]Continue reading “‘For signing a Petition … [he] was put into the Stocks’ – Petitioning from within the Debtors’ Prison”
We have spent much of the last year and a half transcribing, editing and publishing hundreds of petitions to local magistrates in early modern England. But what can you actually do with all these new sources?
Sharon Howard has a new post on her blog showing that they can be used explore how people described and responded to violence in their communities. She focuses on 85 petitions about non-lethal violence, most involving a women as either victim or perpetrator or both.
She found that petitioners crafted narratives of violence that emphasised malice, public reputation, fear, material losses and of course physical trauma. Moreover, these narratives were highly gendered, with women often highlighting issues such as pregnancy, motherhood or marriage when trying to make their case to the magistrates.
In 1594 Allys Whittingham, William Bealey and Margery his wife petitioned Cheshire Quarter Sessions, setting out the many abuses and outrages perpetrated against them by Anne Lingard. She had had unjust warrants against them, claiming to be afraid of “bodily harm”. This was “greatly astonishing” to the petitioners, who were “well known never to have disturbed her majesties peace” or threatened Anne herself. … [Read the rest of the full post here]
The 1621 Parliament was summoned reluctantly by the king and achieved little in the way of legislation before being dissolved in early 1622. But it is remembered for other developments that would have long-lasting consequences: the revivals of impeachment, of the Lords’ role as a court of appeal, and of petitioning.
There are just 13 surviving petitions addressed to the House of Lords in the parliamentary archives up to 1620 compared to more than 60 in 1621. Here I look at one of those 1621 petitioners, Elizabeth Skory, who was also among the first women to petition the Lords in the early modern period.
‘The Petitcion of Elizabeth Skorey touch Sir John Bennett, 18 May 1621’. Image courtesy of the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/1/18.
Over 730 petitions addressed to the House of Lords – with a few to the House of Commons – have now been made public on British History Online. Full transcriptions of these manuscripts from the Parliamentary Archives are now freely available to be read online, alongside hundreds of other petitions from local archives and from the national ‘State Papers’.
Parliament was an obvious focal point for people with grievances and demands, as a ‘representative’ institution that played an increasingly active part in encouraging the submission of petitions, and as the highest court in the land. At times, MPs and peers were inundated with supplications, from all corners of the land, and all sorts of people. Due to the devastating Palace of Westminster fire of 1834 – when the papers of the Upper House were deemed more valuable than those of the Lower House – the overwhelming majority of those that survive are contained within the archives of the House of Lords, and the transcriptions in this volume represent a small sample of the texts that have been preserved. Rather than select texts on the basis of important events and famous people, we opted to transcribe as many as possible – usually all – from particular years when Parliament met 1597, 1601, 1606, 1610, 1614, 1621, 1624, 1640, 1648, 1661, 1671, 1679, 1689 and 1696.
These petitions provide ample testimony about the range of issues that motivated petitioners, about their expectations of Parliament, and about the responses they received. For example, since peers took it upon themselves to address problems with the legal system, they encountered people like Philip Page (1624), who professed to be ‘a poore oppressed prisoner in the comon wardes of the Fleet’. Page narrated a sorry tale of troubles in the Court of Chancery, and of his mistreatment, which was ‘contrary to all equity and conscience’, ‘against common sence’, and indeed ‘fraudulent’. He turned to peers as ‘the principall pillars who support equity and common good’.
‘To the right reverend, and right honourable the lords spirituall and temporall in this high and most honourable court of Parliament assembled. The humble peticion of Philip Page‘ [1624], first two pages. Image courtesy of the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/1/23.Of course, Parliament was a legislative as well as a judicial institution, and petitions were increasingly submitted by people who sought to express opinions about particular bills as they progressed through both Houses. In a demonstration of the participatory nature of Parliament, as well as London’s development as a global trading port, an interesting example involves a petition from ‘divers shopkeepers and warehouse keepers’ who dealt in ‘India, Persia and China silks, Bengalls and painted callicoes’ submitted in 1696. They were concerned about a bill ‘now lying before your lordships’ that would ‘utterly deprive’ them of their ‘livelyhood’, and they pleaded to be heard at the ‘bar’ of the House. What makes this all the more interesting is that amongst its forty-six signatories were at least fourteen women, headed by Mary Pyke. Petitions to the Lords, in other words, shed valuable light upon the lives and work of ordinary women.
To the right honourable the lords spirituall and temporall in Parliament assembled. The humble peticion of divers shopkeepers and warehouse keepers [1696]. Image courtesy of the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/1/484/1051.Finally, Parliament was obviously the scene for momentous political, religious and constitutional battles, and these too are reflected in our sample. On 19 November 1640, for instance, the Lords received a petition from the Earl of Strafford, lord lieutenant of Ireland and a close ally of both Charles I and Archbishop William Laud. Strafford had recently been imprisoned by the Long Parliament, and he sought to be ‘bayled’, and to be granted access to his solicitor, William Raylton, particularly since he ‘heares not as yet of any matter in spetiall objected against him’. Strafford’s plea was rejected, and his subsequent impeachment for high treason, followed by his controversial trial, attainder and execution in 1641, proved to be a key staging post on the road to civil war and revolution.
Overall, the topics covered by the petitions in this volume – from rich and poor, and from individuals as well as large groups – ranged across all aspects of contemporary life, from debt and imprisonment to litigation and property, as well as the economy, the church and the state.
Anyone who wants to know more about petitioning in early modern England could start by reading our ‘very short introduction’ and then move on to our annotated bibliography of published scholarship. Each volume also has an editorial introduction offering a brief analysis of petitioners and their business. Further guidance and advice will appear in due course; in the meantime, we hope that these transcriptions prove to be as interesting to you as they have been useful to us:
We would love to hear what you find! Please note that searching is currently by keyword only and spelling was very irregular in this period, so you may need to experiment. We will eventually have a more advanced search facility.
The volume was team effort. It was edited by Jason Peacey and transcribed by Gavin Robinson and Tim Wales. Preparing the texts for online publication on British History Online was completed by Jonathan Blaney and Kunika Kono of IHR Digital.
We are extremely grateful to the Parliamentary Archives who supported the creation of these new transcriptions. Their phenomenal collections provide ample opportunities for further research on petitions, not least in terms of the individuals and communities that appear in our sample. We are also grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their financial support, without which these volumes would not have been possible.
During the reign of Charles I, the king and his councillors received hundreds of petitions every year. Then, after civil war broke out in 1642, the new Parliamentary regime in London began receiving petitions as well. As part of ‘The Power of Petitioning’ project, we have transcribed and published almost 400 of these manuscripts from across the seventeenth century on British History Online.
We also completed a six-month Shared Learning Project with a large group of amateur researchers from the London Region of the University of the Third Age. Each of these researchers wrote one or more reports about the petitioners and their requests or complaints.
These short pieces of research are now online and we are very pleased to share them with you …
‘Petitioners in the reign of Charles I and the Civil Wars, 1625-1649’: The set of 36 reports by the U3A participants, covering the second quarter of the seventeenth century. Each report also includes a professional transcription of the original petition and links to further sources of information.
A petition from Kent just before a Royalist revolt in 1648, discussed in a report by Sarah Harris.
We also completed a six-month Shared Learning Project with a large group of amateur researchers from the London Region of the University of the Third Age. Each of these researchers wrote one or more reports about the petitioners and their requests or complaints.
These short pieces of research are now online and we are very pleased to share them with you …
‘Investigating the Lives of Seventeenth-Century Petitioners’: The main site for the U3A project, including information about the research methods and important caveats about accuracy and interpretation. Here you will find links to each of the sets of reports as they are published.
‘Petitioners in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, 1600-1625’: The first set of 46 reports by the U3A participants, covering the first 25 years of the seventeenth century. Each report also includes a professional transcription of the original petition and links to further sources of information.
[This blogpost examines the petitions written by Wiltshire woman Arundell Penruddock and her family between 1655 and 1660. These are housed at the Wiltshire and Swindon Heritage Centre and demonstrate a concerted effort firstly to try and save her husband, John, from execution following a failed uprising against the Commonwealth, and then to secure property and money for her family. It is written by Dr Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth, who recently completed her PhD at the University of Exeter.]
At the outbreak of the Civil Wars in 1642, John Penruddock and his brothers fought on the Royalist side; his siblings were killed but John rose to the rank of colonel before resigning his commission at Easter 1645.[1] The family’s loyalty to Charles I cost them dearly; parliamentary record the fines levied against John and his father for delinquency and the sequestration of their land.[2] When John senior died, his son found himself heir to a confiscated estate and was forced to spend a great deal of time and money trying to regain it.
Penruddock’s refusal to accept the new regime led him to engage with the Sealed Knot. Commissioned by Charles Stuart from exile in Paris, a series of assaults at Newcastle, York and Winchester were planned. A lack of support meant that the planned northern attacks did not take place, but, on 8 March 1655, Penruddock and his 400-strong force rode into Winchester. However, Oliver Cromwell’s spies had discovered the conspiracy and the garrison there had been reinforced. Thwarted, Penruddock headed instead to Salisbury, arriving on the 12th. Here, his men occupied the market square, commandeered horses, released prisoners willing to join them and publicly proclaimed their support for Charles Stuart. They then marched through Blandford, Sherborne and Yeovil, hoping to swell their numbers with the Royalists of Dorset and Somerset. Few responded. On the 14th March, at South Molton, Devon, Penruddock and his company were confronted by Colonel Unton Croke’s troop of horse from Exeter.[3] There was a half-hearted street fight: the insurgents fled, but Penruddock and others were captured.[4] They were taken to Exeter, incarcerated in the castle and then put on trial for treason. Penruddock’s Uprising had failed.
Penruddock’s attempts to have the charges dropped on the grounds that his actions were not treasonous because treason could only be against a King are documented in the published account of his trial.[5] Initially, both John and Arundell petition Cromwell for clemency. Penruddock begs mercy not just for his sake, but ‘for the sake of soe many Innocents his wife children and Relations who are too numerous to be made miserable by his death’ and acknowledges that ‘in your Highnesses Breath depends his Life or death’.[6] Arundell’s first petition echoes the sentiment. She accepts that her husband ‘hath justly deserved … your Highnesses most seveer displeasure’, but minimises his actions as ‘rashness and folly’.[7] Whilst, as Andrea Button notes, Royalist women petitioners sought repentance on behalf of their husbands, Arundell instead begs Cromwell to pardon John so that ‘he may live to repent and redeeme his ingratitude as well as fault’.[8] God has ‘out of his wonted mercy to you Highness [hath] frustrated their evil designes’ but she hopes that Cromwell will show his mercy and allow John to live.
Our final two sets of petitions to local magistrates have just been published on British History Online. The full transcriptions of 66 petitions to the magistrates of Worcestershire and 17 petitions to those of Cheshire are now free for anyone to read. These documents are not as numerous as our previously published sets, but they offer a new perspective on many ordinary peoples’ complaints and requests in the eighteenth century. When these are added to the volumes that we have already published, there are now transcriptions of 1,407 petitions to county quarter sessions available online from the 1570s to the 1790s.
The latest transcriptions all date to the eighteenth century, with some focusing on traditional concerns such as poor relief and petty litigation while other addressed new issues such as licencing religious dissenters and releasing imprisoned debtors. Many were presented by people who otherwise have left little trace on the historical record, so these texts can provide invaluable information about their lives and concerns.
Among the new transcriptions are several that stand out in various ways from the hundreds of others that we have been working on for this project. For example, perhaps the shortest petition we have in our collection is the request from a group of unnamed Protestant dissenters in Mobberley (Cheshire) to have a licence to worship in a local private house. Dating from 1758, the text of the petition itself is only 27 words, reminding us how routine this process could become over time.
Our shortest petition? Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, QJF 186/4/103.
Also notable is the number of printed petitions that appear in the eighteenth century. In 1720s Worcestershire, twelve of the seventeen surviving petitions are actually printed forms submitted by imprisoned debtors applying for release from gaol, with only the key personal details filled in by hand. These two are a reminder of the bureaucratisation of some aspects of the petitioning process, a trend that Naomi Tadmor has traced in the poor relief system at this same time.
The printed petition of James Oyen, 1725. Worcestershire Archives, Ref.110 BA1/1/274/45.
However, my personal favourites in the new sets are the several petitions from the 1790s submitted to the Worcestershire magistrates asking for licences to open theatres in various local towns. John Boles Watson, manager of the Royal Theatre at Cheltenham, and William Meill, manager of the theatres at Worcester, Wolverhampton and Ludlow, each sought official permission to open theatres in Stourbridge and Great Malvern in this decade. Specifically, they wanted approval for ‘performance of such tragedies, comedies, interludes, opera’s, plays, or farces, as now are or hereafter shall be acted performed or represented at either of the patent or licensed theatres in the city of Westminster’. With a bit of further digging, one might be able to find out exactly what was being performed in this corner of the Midlands at the height of the Anglo-French wars, but for now the petitions still give a sense of the geography of the local cultural scene.
Petition of John Boles Watson, manager of the royal theatre at Cheltenham, 1790. Worcestershire Archives, Ref.110 BA1/1/522/76.
If you want to know more about petitioning in early modern England to better understand the context of these documents, you could start by reading our free ‘very short introduction’ and then move on to our ever-expanding annotated bibliography of published scholarship. Each volume also has an editorial introduction briefly reviewing who sent these petitions, the topics covered, their place in the archives, and more. In the case of Cheshire and Worcestershire, the previous volume introductions have been updated to reflect the addition of the new eighteenth century texts.
We will be publishing further guidance and advice on our Resources page, but for now you can just dive into the sources:
We would love to hear what you find! Remember that searching is currently by keyword only and spelling was very irregular in this period, so you may need to experiment. We will eventually have a more advanced search facility.
These volumes are truly a team effort. They were edited by Sharon Howard (Cheshire) and Brodie Waddell (Worcestershire), and both were transcribed by Gavin Robinson. Preparing the texts for online publication on British History Online was completed by Jonathan Blaney and Kunika Kono of IHR Digital.
These two volumes complete our publication of quarter sessions petitions, which also includes volumes for Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Westminster. We recently published a volume of petitions in the State Papers and will soon be publishing a volume of petitions to the House of Lords. Watch this site for further announcements.
Nearly 400 petitions addressed ‘to the King’s most Excellent Majesty’ and other key political authorities in seventeenth-century England are now available on British History Online. Full transcriptions of these manuscripts are now free to read online, alongside more than 1,300 local petitions that we have already transcribed and published. The new volume is a sample of 387 items drawn from the ‘State Papers’ collection held at The National Archives in London.
Hundreds of ‘petitions’ – formal written requests or complaints – were submitted to England’s central authorities every year in this period by people from across the social and political spectrum. The transcriptions in this volume are only a small sample from the waves of supplication received by the nation’s rulers, but they nonetheless provide a strong sense of the sorts of concerns expressed by people at the time. Rather than focusing on well-known controversies or famous individuals, we simply selected the first four available petitions from each year that were preserved in the State Papers Domestic. This means that the range of topics touched on here is fascinatingly miscellaneous.
One finds many petitions like the complaint submitted by ‘the poore fishermen of the cinque ports’ to King James I in 1609, expressing their anger at foreign fishermen who ‘spoile’ their livelihoods. According to these petitioners, the ‘cuninge practizes of straingers’ from the Low Countries allowed them to monopolise the best fishing areas and sell their catch in English markets. This, they claimed, could be prevented by imposing a royal tax on such sales, ‘wherby the multitude of foraine nations which oppress us wilbe lessened’ and trade will increase ‘to the generall good of the whole kingdome’. The petition was signed by almost 100 individuals from six different ports, showing the high levels of organisation that can already be found in petitioning even at the beginning of the century.
This volume includes some highly political petitions like the one submitted to Parliament by ‘the knightes gentry clergy and commonalty of the countie of Kent’ in May 1648 which asked for peace talks with Charles I, the disbanding of the army, the upholding of ‘the fundamentall constitutions of this common wealth’ in legal trials, and the abolition of the excise. The petitioners claimed that, unless Parliament listened to them, there would be no end to ‘these sad and heavy presures and distempers, whose continewance will inevitably ruine both our selves and our posterities’. It was subscribed just days before the outbreak of a royalist revolt in this county. Such overtly partisan petitions are rare to find in the State Papers, but those that survive can illuminate some of the great political struggles of the age.
Alongside these collective petitions, the volume also includes large numbers of requests for mercy or pardon from individuals accused of serious crimes as well as even more requests from men and women for favour in the form of grants of offices, pensions, lands or tenancies. Others touch on a huge range of topics including diplomatic interventions, trading privileges, aristocratic titles and much else.
If you want to know more about petitioning in early modern England to better understand the context of these documents, you could start by reading our free ‘very short introduction’ and then move on to our ever-expanding annotated bibliography of published scholarship. Each volume also has an editorial introduction briefly reviewing who sent these petitions, the topics covered, their place in the archives, and more. We will be publishing further guidance and advice on this site eventually, but for now just dive into the sources:
We would love to hear what you find! Remember that searching is currently by keyword only and spelling was very irregular in this period, so you may need to experiment. We will eventually have a more advanced search facility.
The volumes were edited by Brodie Waddell and transcribed by Gavin Robinson. Preparing the texts for online publication on British History Online was completed by Jonathan Blaney and Kunika Kono of IHR Digital.
We are extremely grateful to The National Archives who supported the creation of these new transcriptions. We highly encourage readers to take advantage of their extensive collections to pursue further research on the individuals and communities mentioned in the petitions. We are also grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their financial support, without which these volumes would not have been possible.
This new volume is part of a series of seven planned volumes, including five comprising petitions to the quarter sessions of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire and the City of Westminster, which have already been published. The final volume will be petitions to the House of Lords. We will announce the last volume here when it is complete.
We have just published full transcriptions of 424 petitions received by the Justices of the Peace for the City of Westminster in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The texts of these requests and complaints are now free to search and read on British History Online. The addition of these Westminster petitions to our recently published volumes for Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire brings the total to over 1,300 transcribed petitions available in our series.
The City of Westminster included most of London’s rapidly growing western suburbs in this period, home to about 130,000 residents by 1700. Wealthy courtiers and politicians lived here alongside huge numbers of poorer workers and destitute paupers, so unsurprisingly the law courts here were busy. The petitions transcribed in this volume often arose from local conflicts that led to residents submitting supplications to the local magistrates for assistance, mercy or arbitration.
In 1620, for example, a servant named Elizabeth Sandes complained that she had ‘behaved her selfe in verie civell and honest manner’ in service since arriving in London about thirteen years earlier. However, after the death of her most recent master, Doctor Fisher of the High Commission, she ended up being ‘drawen into follie’ by the false promises of Charles Chambers, gentleman. Now she was pregnant, but Chambers refused to marry her or offer any support. She pleaded for the court to force Chambers to provide some financial help, as ‘in equitie and conscience’ he ought to do. It seems the magistrates granted her petition, because Chambers was then seized and taken to the Gatehouse Prison by the constable.
While this is just a single example, it is suggestive of the sorts of stories that frequently appear in these petitions. Many involve complaints from pregnant women or single mothers about negligent fathers. Even more involve servants or apprentices in conflict with their masters. And the largest group of all concern various forms of litigation, whether appeals from victims seeking justice or pleas from accused people seeking mercy.
Alongside these many individual petitions, there were also a substantial number from larger groups or whole communities, such as the five men, three women ‘and diverse other inhabitantes in Hartshorne Lane in the parish of Saint Martins in the Feildes’ who petitioned in 1636. They complained that the old watercourse that ran through the lane had been stopped up, leading to floods in ‘all our cellars and lower roomes’ and the spread of ‘daingerous and ill savours’. They sought the help of the magistrates to combat the perilously foul smell.
If you want to know more about petitioning in early modern England to better understand the context of these documents, you could start by reading our free ‘very short introduction’ and then move on to our ever-expanding annotated bibliography of published scholarship. Each volume also has an editorial introduction briefly reviewing who sent these petitions, the topics covered, their place in the archives, and more. We will be publishing further guidance and advice on our Resources page, but for now you can just dive into the sources:
We would love to hear what you find! Remember that searching is currently by keyword only and spelling was very irregular in this period, so you may need to experiment. We will eventually have a more advanced search facility.
[Note: Unfortunately the search interface on British History Online is currently not working correctly. To search, rather than browse, the petitions series, you can use google’s ‘inurl’ feature. Simply type inurl:”british-history.ac.uk/petitions” into the search bar, followed by the desired keyword. For example, inurl:”british-history.ac.uk/petitions” debt will return petitions including the word ‘debt’. The new Westminster petitions are not yet indexed by google, so will not be included in these results. Apologies for the inconvenience.]
The seventeenth-century petitions were photographed by the archives staff at London Metropolitan Archives and they have been transcribed by Tim Wales. Images of the eighteenth-century petitions were drawn from London Lives, 1690-1800 and the transcriptions there were revised for a higher level of accuracy by Gavin Robinson. The texts for revision were extracted by Sharon Howard from ‘London Lives XML Data’, which is CC-BY-NC licensed. Preparing the texts for online publication on British History Online was completed by Jonathan Blaney and Kunika Kono of IHR Digital.
We are extremely grateful to London Metropolitan Archives, especially Charlie Turpie, Principal Archivist, who supported the creation of these new transcriptions. We highly encourage readers to take advantage of their extensive collections and online catalogue to pursue further research on the individuals and communities mentioned in the petitions. We are also grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic History Society for their financial support, without which these would not have been possible.
This is the fifth in a series of seven planned volumes which already includes petitions to the quarter sessions of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, and will soon also include petitions to the Crown and the House of Lords. We will announce the new volumes here as they appear.
![To the right reverend, and right honourable the lords spirituall and temporall in this high and most honourable court of Parliament assembled. The humble peticion of Philip Page [1624]. Image courtesy of the Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/10/1/23.](/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2020/08/1PagePetition-1024x696.jpg)
