“The Down-right Dick of the West”

I’ve been working on the UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive on and off for two years now and I have to say that is my favorite ballad title yet.  The ballad itself is about a man from the west, Dick, who goes to London, gets into a bit of an argument with some gallant, and wins the day by proving that plowmen like him were more important than Londoners.  Unlike many of the ballads I have read, it does seem to have a more complex message, in that it does hint at the brutishness of “Down-right Dick.”  While I’ve read better ballads, this one wins my award for best title.  If I was writing about court/country or something along those lines, I think this would get a chapter named after it.

My work with Strafford’s correspondence goes forward.  I have about 5 of the reels, with a few dozen letters that I need to look at.  Most of the Raylton correspondence is in the reels I have not gotten yet.  I’m not sure how much farther I want to go down this road; it is taking a lot of time and I want to start writing.  However, I guess that I do need to put Mabbott as agent into a larger context, and Raylton is one of the best candidates I’ve seen to play foil for Mabbott.

Has anyone heard of a black clerk of the signet in the early 1630s?  One of George Garrard’s newsletters to Wentworth mentions one:

Amongs whom the most notorious was Winwood’s litle Moore, One of the Clerkes of the Signett, who was fined for his buildings about St Martines Church in the Fields . . .

Unless of course he means that the clerk was named Moore.  However, I don’t see a “Moore” in the index to Aylmer’s The King’s Servants.  Anyway, this hasn’t been my most brilliant update, but I guess I will leave it at that.

PS.  In non-academic news, I highly recommend checking out the “literal videos” on youtube, particularly “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”  I’ve been laughing about it for days.  As well, I feel really bad for that kid with the flower that got snubbed by Megan Fox.  If you haven’t seen it, google it and prepare to feel pity.  My friend commented that he is the heir apparent for the Star Wars Kid.

The death of a Lord Treasurer

I was perusing the newsletters written by George Garrard to the earl of Strafford when I came across an account of the death of the Lord Treasurer Richard Weston, earl of Portland (d. 1635).  It sounds like it was terribly painful:

Friday Morning about three of the Clock the Lord Treasurer died; and he said over Night to many of his Friends, that he should do so about that Hour.  He died in great Pain, entring his Bed not above one Hour before his Death, crying out vehemently upon a Pain in his Kidneys, and most of that Hour tumbling and rowling up and down: At length he fetched three great Groans and expired.  At Night he was opened by Watson the Surgeon, his Heart two Inches fat about, a fat Heart, his Liver and Lungs good, his Sweet-bread naught, his Spleen good, but his Kidneys clogged with Stone, in one of them a Stone four Inches about, in the other a Stone like the Cork that stops a Bottle; the Bottom of his Stomach very foul, black, raw, being corroded with some malignant Humours.

Talk about a rough way to go.  From a similar letter, I also learned that Prynne, after having his ears cropped, had them sown back on.  The amazing part is that it worked!  I’m not sure about when he had them cut clean off, though.  The seventeenth century was kind of gross.  Then there was this item; I thought it was rather cold:

The little Treasurer Sir Thomas Edmondes hath lately buried his only Son, in whom he was most unfortunate, therefore no great Loss to him.  For, of all young Men that ever I heard of, he was the most given to Drunkenness, no Counsel, no Advice able to recall him from that filthy beastly Sin.  Also Mr. Comptroller Sir Henry Vane’s eldest son hath left his Father, his Mother, his Country, and that Fortune which his Father would have left him here, and is for Conscience sake gone into New-England, there to lead the felt of his Days, being about twenty Years of Age.  He had abstained two Years from taking the Sacrament in England, because he could get no body to administer it to him standing.  He was bred up at Leyden, and I hear that Sir Nathaniel Rich and Mr. Pymme have done him much hurt in their Persuasions this Way.  God forgive them for it, if they  be guilty.

This last one is interesting for other, obvious reasons.  I got these from the first volume of Strafford’s Letters and Dispatches edited by Knowler, published in the eighteenth century.  I also wanted to mention for anyone unaware, as I discovered recently, that the Strafford papers held at Sheffield City Library have been microfilmed and Julia Merritt has edited a guide to the said microfilm.  I wonder if they are somewhere digitally available.  Nonetheless, a very useful set of papers to be made widely available.  I just ordered up about 10 reels from UC Irvine.  Why Irvine had them and none of the other UCs (like UCLA or Berkeley) is a bit strange, but I guess I’m just happy that one of them did.

Anyway, that’s it for now.  I might have spent more time discussing the various issues raised by these selections (early modern punishment, mutiliation, cosmetic surgery, puritanism, etc.) but it’s been a rough few weeks and will continue to be so.  They caught my attention, so I thought others might be interested as well.

Notable Occurences and more on agents

The new Carnivalesque is up at Mercurius Politicus!  Surprisingly, my previous post is actually mentioned!  Whooo!  My thanks to Politicus for hosting the Carnivalesque and for the handful of people who read this blog.

Also mentioned in the Carnivalesque is this article over at Got Medieval.  Evidently, Johannes Gutenberg found a printing press after he tripped over a stone tablet.  A panel of experts, indeed.

I have continued my look into agenting (I don’t know if that’s a real word; if it isn’t, I hereby call dibs).  I’ve been skimming through Knowler’s 18th-century volumes of Strafford’s correspondence for clues as to his relationship with William Raylton, clerk of the council chamber and later the clerk of the privy seal.  As J. F. Merritt points out in her chapter in her edited book The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1621-1641, Raylton was a very key component in Strafford’s communication with London.  In fact, he seems to have performed very similar functions to Mabbott with some his patrons.  I still have to look up more secondary literature on Strafford, but I think this is definitely something useful.

I have been trying to formulate a slightly more vertical version of political history.  What I am doing still focuses on the center, Westminster and Whitehall, and I am still interested in what the grands were up to, but I also think it is necessary to look at some of the lesser known functionaries in these places.  Men like Mabbott and Raylton were there, and provided important unofficial functions, but very little record of these activities remain.  All we have are snippets, usually in other people’s correspondence.  However, we need to imagine a political world in which the machinery had its own minds and motives.  These men were official clerks, but also were in the pocket of others.  When grands conducted business in front of these people, they had to keep that in mind.  Some of them, like Mabbott, seem to have had more mercenary tendencies, while others may have been loyal to one patron.  Nonetheless, it does add another texture to the goings on in Westminster.  We need to remember that these scribes were not just cogs in the government machine, but were powerful players in their own right, and they had a great deal of information pass under or around them every day.  They were likely better informed than many of the more famous players.  Peter Beal, in In Praise of Scribes, remarks that scribes were singled out as unnaturally powerful for their humble social status.  Perhaps we should take the contemporary complaint a bit more seriously.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for today.  See you all next time!

Lake on post-revisionism, Me on the historian’s craft

I just read Lake’s chapter “Retrospective: Wentworth’s political world in revisionist and post-revisionist perspective” in Merritt ed., The Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, 1561-1641 (1996).  I have to say that I am impressed.  It’s just another one of those occasions where I feel utterly incapable of the profession I am trying to enter.  However, as a graduate student, that is nothing too new and I have moved on.

Even though the chapter is over a decade old, it is still a useful signpost of the direction that the historiography is headed as well as an astute discussion of what revisionism was.  Yes, it was destructive and iconoclastic even in its attack on whiggery, marxism, and whatever other form of “modernization theory” it could find (I am an American, so I will spell it with a “z”).  However, the real use of it was in returning high politics to the story and replacing “rising middle class”/”striving for democracy” with other long term problems, like the “functional breakdown” of the government and the divisions within Christianity.  Revisionism was destructive, but it was also constructive, it’s just that the new problems seemed so unique and isolated; how could historians continue to talk to each other?

The way forward is to look at other centers of power besides parliament and the king.  Important though they may be, they were not the whole show.  For Lake, in the short term, historians have to engage in histoire événementielle, looking at well defined events and following throughout England and different social and political milieu.  Lake is looking for a “multiplicity of narratives” to replace the master narrative.

This future (and ongoing) historiography is more intellectually satisfying, more postmodern, and more capable of dealing with disorder.  It is an historiography without an end, because how could we ever run out of events?  It seems that we have secured our jobs for the foreseeable future.

Or have we?  My question is: how do we teach it?  How do you teach history without a narrative?  How many people can stomach history without a point?  In a sense, this new history is more pure; it is history written to the taste of historians.  Yet, in a place where the president is proposing increasing funding to the other side of campus, can the humanities really expect to prosper without appearing useful?

This is all obviously beyond the scope of Peter Lake’s chapter, which was very insightful (the complexity of the discussion is not done justice here) and has given me some direction in writing my dissertation, and some grounding in a larger historiographical trend which I find gratifying, but it has made me start to wonder about what it is that we do.  Marc Bloch told us to live in our world, even while writing about one long gone.  I mean, the man was executed by the Nazis.  What is that we do?

I am not advocating pandering to the ill-conceived notions of undergraduates.  Whether or not they enjoy finding out that Marx was wrong, that history did not magic up the United States, and that perhaps science and religion aren’t the worst of enemies, we should teach them to think differently.  Certainly, we are not here merely to confirm what they already misguidedly believe.

Perhaps the answer is with Marc Bloch, too.  Our prey, like the mythical giant, is wherever we catch the human scent.  We study humanity: in society, by himself, and all the myriad things it is that the human animal does.  We engage in that age old art of storytelling.  But then again, didn’t those stories have a point?

Mabbott in London

Hello everyone, I apologize for my long disappearance from the world.  I have been busy, suffice it to say, and more recently I have been very distracted by my city burning to the ground.  It sounds like the fire crews are starting to win the battle, and the weather finally broke, but it’s been a very miserable few days.

I have been working steadily on putting together one of my dissertation chapters.  I don’t have anything on paper yet, but I’m getting the itch to start writing, so I thought I would start here.  This chapter will be on Mabbott as a London Agent.

Old Gilbert is mostly known for his role in the news industry, and perhaps that is his major significance, but my research on him indicates that his main occupation was as a London agent to a variety of patrons, including a handful of armies (Fairfax’s, Cromwell’s, and Monck’s, and I do think these need to be divided), the Hull corporation, Leith, and a dozen or so royalists.  There is undoubtedly more, but that’s all I can find.  Some of these I do not have very much on other than intriguing tidbits, and on the rest I only have about half the story, but I think put together they tell an interesting tale.

Mabbott had been a parliamentary clerk, he was well connected in the army, and he was “fitt for many imployments” (my new dissertation title).  All of these things made him a very useful middle man: he knew most of the important movers and shakers and he knew how to get things done.  He just never shows up in any of the official records.

I have been having a hard time finding a framework in which to work out the history.  I plan to look at the news culture aspects, mainly by trying to understand his relationship to the Hull fathers.  Ian Atherton and some others have painted the nature of the relationship between newsmonger and recipient as almost being forced into a patron-client relationship in order to avoid some of the dangers inherent in disseminating news.  This worked its effects on the content of the letter, tending toward very little glossing or explanation of the news, and the placed the two parties in a more readily recognized social relationship.  Thus, the newsletter writer was made the client, and Mabbott as client, could do a lot of favors for his patrons.  At some point, people seem to have figured out that if someone had good enough connections to get the news, he might just be able to do other things, too.

However, a lot of Mabbott’s work as agent did not have much to do with news.  He was used to prosecute business in parliament and the protectorate.  This is the part I am having difficulty developing.  I have found a number of articles on the London guilds lobbying parliament and crown in the Tudor period, but I haven’t had much luck beyond that.  Derek Hirst’s article, “Making Contact: Petitions and the English Republic,” makes a persuasive  case that in the 1650s, interested parties increasingly turned to middle men to pass their petitions on to the appropriate committee or official.  Mabbott would have been exactly one of those middle men (I’ve got evidence of him doing exactly that).

The problem is that I can’t seem to find a larger historiography on the London Agent as part of the political culture.  Obviously, there had been London agents for a very long time before the 1640s, but I’m not sure where to look.  The likely forerunners would have been at Charles’s court during the Personal Rule and around the parliaments in the 1620s.  The parliaments transacted an enormous amount of private business, there surely must have been agents acting behind the scenes.  I think I’m on to something here, because as I get deeper and deeper into it, the London agent seems to have been a necessary if rather invisible part of the political culture, but I don’t have other examples to look to.  If anyone knows of anything discussing either the agent as a concept or someone who acted as an agent, I would greatly appreciate a point in the right direction.

Anyway, that’s my post for now, I will hopefully have some further thoughts to post in the next few days.  Also, I recently rewatched “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and I’ve been laughing about Paul Rudd singing “the weather outside is weather” for the last hour.  I just thought I’d mention it.

Better update soon

I apologize for my long absence. I have been quite busy with various time-consuming things, though I’m really not entirely certain where all the time went. I have embarked upon a new project to discuss Mabbott as “agent,” in a variety of contexts and have begun my research into the matter. I will likely have some kind of partial review of the literature soon. See you soon, and stay tuned!

PCCBS and San Diego

I am back from San Diego and the annual meeting of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies.  The location was pleasant and the conference went very well.  The panels I attended were interesting and I think UCSB made a good showing.  I have already passed my thanks to Abe Stoll and David Como for chairing and commenting (respectively) on our panel.

I unfortunately do not have much else to report.  I haven’t been able to get much work done, and I will likely be working on fellowship and TA applications for the next few days.  As my girlfriend has said, I can’t wait until I don’t have to reapply for my job every year.  In my case, especially since I am more or less certain I will not receive a TAship in my department, the prospect is even less enjoyable.

I recently became an American Friend of the IHR and purchased a subscription to the premium content on British History Online.   While I would prefer to have it for free, I will say that it is very useful and far less expensive than many other options for accessing these materials (and more portable).  As well, I take solace in the fact that it does go to supporting further digitization projects.  Since I am now facing the prospect of working at a university without significant research resources within the next year or two (if I am very lucky), I am more appreciative of the BHO service than I was a year or two ago.  As an occasional employee of the English Broadside Ballad Archive project here at UCSB, I do understand that these digitization projects can be rather expensive and I am happy to support in some way the employment of other poor graduate students in similar positions to me.  Like most people, I am capable of sympathizing with myself and with people like myself.

Anyway, my girlfriend’s cousin is coming into town this evening, and I need to help clean or cook or carry out some other household task.

Forecast is sunny and warm

I am back in comfortable Santa Barbara, CA now.  It is nice to go outside without a scarf.  I should do a long update after having been gone so long, but I am afraid I do not have the time just yet.  I am presenting at PCCBS this weekend and I need to finish up the paper.  It’s mostly done, but it isn’t very polished, and I think it might be a bit confusing.  Work, work, work.

It’s taken from a paper I wrote last year that I will be turning into a chapter of my dissertation.  I am looking at the publication of accounts of Charles I’s trial, and Mabbott’s role in disseminating them.  In doing so, I look at Mabbott’s relationship with two other major newsbook editors: Samuel Pecke and Henry Walker.  I find that Mabbott used his (and the army’s) relationship with Pecke to facilitate the dissemination of the version of the trial published in the Moderate.  The version in the Moderate was in turn extracted from the separate published as the Narrative.  To make a long story short, the New Model organized the publication of that account of the trial, using Mabbott and his connections in London to facilitate it.  At the same time, Mabbott’s rivalry with Walker allowed/forced Walker to publish his own account of the trial, the Notes.  Thus, the episode shows an odd mix of personal, official, and public in the production of the news.  That could be interesting, right?

My work lately has been indicating the extreme importance of Mabbott’s personal relationships throughout his careers (licenser, agent, lobbyist, embezzler, etc.) which grew as government continued to professionalize, and I will probably have more to say on that in the future.  Being a parliamentary clerk opened a lot of doors for him.

I have also found out that Mabbott was a bit of a rake, though a very energetic one.  But I digress.

Dublin, Cambridge, and London

Sorry for my long hiatus.  Getting ready for my trip to Ireland and the UK and the first stages of the trip have proven very time-consuming.  However, I am now in the UK.  I’m at a restaurant/bar called Henry’s near the Cam which has free wireless.  I still have to finish my paper for PCCBS, but I think I’m almost done.

I’ve already been to Dublin, where I did not find very much useful, but I found out that Mabbott’s son’s wife died in 1667.  So, not very much useful.  However, I did get a chance to do some sightseeing; I may post a picture soon.  As well, if anybody every makes it out to Howth, there’s a small restaurant called The House that makes the best eggs I’ve ever had.  I will also add that the librarians and archivists at the Dublin City Archives and the Royal Irish Academy were very friendly and helpful.

Cambridge is amazingly beautiful.  I was not expecting it to be this nice.  Today I went to Sussex chapel and saw the sign that Cromwell’s head is buried somewhere nearby.  It only took 300 years to get it back in the ground.  We head to London in a few days and I have got a full docket.  I’m trying to plan out all the archival work, but there’s a lot.  It looks like I will be spending a great deal of time at the National Archives; more than I had anticipated.  Kew is nice, but I prefer the BL and the Lords Records Office, neither of which place will I be spending much time this turn.

Anyway, back to other things.  I may try to make it out to Ely tomorrow to see Cromwell’s house, but likely not.  I will try to post again soon, maybe with some pictures.  One last note: I never believed it, but the Guiness really is better in Ireland.

Random updates

The blog Early Modern History noted that Tanner-Ritchie now has, among others, the early HMC reports for purchase online.  While google books has some of the HMC reports up, it certainly does not have all, and I am seriously considering purchases reports six and seven.

Doing a little digging, I have found out that all the archival material of the Stationers’ Company up to the twentieth century has been microfilmed.  I am curious to see what the Court records have to offer.  The Huntington has copies, so I will have to go check it out.  Only about a dozen libraries in the US have full sets.  I may instead look up a guide and order some reels through ILL, because getting to the Huntington is a bit of a hassle.

The other day I told a friend I couldn’t do anything because I was busy reading about early modern papermaking.  Ever wonder what the hell it is that we do?

 I was at the Huntington for the Charles I conference last weekend.  It was really good.  I don’t have the time to go into it right now, but there were a lot of really interesting papers, such that it is difficult to single out any.  Of course, because of my own proclivities, Jason Peacey’s and Jason McElligot’s were most interesting, but all the papers were well considered and insightful.

I’m working on planning my trip back to the UK and Ireland in two weeks.  Most of the arrangements have already been made, but I’m trying to plan out my archive time as carefully as possible.  I’ve discovered, much to my chagrin (and Irish, as well), that the reason I have been able to find so little on Mabbott in Ireland is because of the fire that burned down the Irish Public Record Office in 1922.  Still, I’m making due, and I’m planning on swinging by the Dublin City Archives and the archive of the Representative Church Body which still has some of the old parish registers.  I’m hoping they will still have the one from the parish where Mabbott lived, but we’ll see.

I’m worried I might have to take a trip up to Edinburgh which I hadn’t planned for, though.  In the 1650s, Mabbott served as the agent for the town of Leith.  I’ve emailed the Edinburgh archives to see if there is anything I need to look at; hopefully I will hear back soon.  Clarke was stationed in Leith in the 1650s, which I assume is directly related to Mabbott’s service, but I would need to find some proof.  There is also the National Library of Scotland to consider.  I’m going down to the Huntington soon to check their manuscript catalogues.  If I need to, I’ll go, but I imagine Edinburgh is quite cold this time of year, and I live in Santa Barbara.

I have been finding some interesting tidbits on Mabbott’s later years, but nothing I’m ready to report on just yet.  It looks like he may have lived much longer than anyone has hitherto guessed and had some rather elite acquaintances.