Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

BLAIR WORDEN - A BOOK OF FRIENDSHIP

bad faith. 9 He demanded the arrest of the current mayor, Isaac Pennington (‘their pretended lord mayor’ and ‘the principal author of those calamities which so nearly threaten the ruin of that famous city’) and his colleagues (‘all persons notoriously guilty of schism and high treason’), the reversal of the current promotion of ‘Brownists, Anabaptists and all manner of sectaries’, and the abandonment of the City’s financial and other support for parliament. The king exacted a promise from the City delegation that his response be read to a meeting of the Common Hall. Curiously, there was also a vastly more emollient response to the City petition, purporting to be from the king, published in London soon after – it is dated by Thomason to 11th January – in which he offers not only ‘to receive graciously any such propositions for an accommodation of peace between our self and our high court of parliament’, but also ‘to propound them our selves’. 10 It was presumably an attempt to undo the damage to the peace party done by the king’s genuine response. But who was behind it is deeply obscure. Its printer, Richard Herne, who was brought to the bar of the House of Lords on 12th January and committed to the Fleet, blamed the poet and playwright and (like Hyde) protégé of Ben Jonson, Henry Glapthorne, for it, although who was behind Glapthorne (who seems never to have been arrested) is unknown. In line with the king’s request, and with the consent of the House of Commons, the meeting of Common Hall was set up for 13th January for a reading of the king’s real response. 11 The event simply provided an opportunity for the war party leaders, the earl of Manchester and John Pym, to rally the City’s backing for the war. They were ‘received and entertained with all imaginable applause’ wrote Hyde a few years later, ‘so that all thoughts of farther address, or compliance with his majesty, were so entirely and absolutely laid aside, that the licence of seditious and treasonable discourses daily increased’. 12 Modern historians have agreed that the king’s response served largely to undermine the peace party in the City, and

9 The Oxford version is The Humble Petition of the Major Alderman and Commons of the City of London to His Majesty with His Maiesties Gratious answer thereunto (Printed, by His Majesties Command, at Oxford, January 5, by Leonard Lichfield, 1642[3]; Madan, 1163; Thomason E.85[19]; Wing H3555). 10 His Majesties Gracious Answer to the Message sent from the Honourable Citie of London, Concerning Peace. Delivered by the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Faukland, Principall Secretarie of State. As it was spoken by his Majestie to the said Secretarie. (Printed at London for Thomas Massam, 1643: Thomason E.84[41]; Wing, C2320, p. 6.). 11 Journal of the House of Commons , III, 921, 924, 925. 12 Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (6 vols., Oxford, 1888), vi. 223-8 (Hyde makes the striking error of putting down Northumberland instead of Manchester); Jordan S. Downs, Civil War London: Mobilizing for Parliament, 1641-45 (Woodbridge, 2021), pp. 124-5.

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