Civil War question....Protestation oath

[Mal]

Wasn't sure where to put this one.

If Cornwall was so resoundingly royalist during the English Civil Wars, why do we have so many protestation oath signaturies? Just curious. Was this the case throughout England and Cornwall? What happened to those who had signed the oath when the Royalists came round? What happened after Parliament had won? Is there any background on any of this?

M.

[donne]

With the Protestation Oath, the the swearer promised to defend ‘the true reformed religion expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England’ and expressed his ‘duty of allegiance’ to ‘maintain and defend His Majesty’s royal person and estate, as also the power and privilege of Parliaments’. For the traditionally-minded parts of the country like Cornwall that wouldn't have been a problem, I would have thought. Recusants and equally those with 'Puritan' beliefs would have had difficulties with the promise to uphold the doctrine of the Church of England.

[Cornish Terrier]

Malcolm - if you go to the Sancreed OPC's website you will find a transcript of 'The Oath'.

sancreedopccornwall.tripod.com/

And you will find that there were supporters of both sides down in West Cornwall.

[donne]

For an account of this troubled time it's difficult to find anything better, in my opinion, than C.V. Wedgewood's trilogy 'The King's Peace', 'The King's War' and 'The Trial of Charles I'. Although first published in the late 1950s, these volumes combine scholarship with a good read. 'The King's Peace' covers the period 1637-1641 and 'The King's War' 1641-1647. Wedgewood recounts the success of the success of Cornish forces in the King's cause up until 1643. The storming of Bristol caused substantial losses and also by that time and during the taking of Bristol several charismatic leaders had been lost; Sir Bevil Grenvile, Sir Sidney Godolphin, John Trevannion and Sir Nicholas Slanning. It seems to me that loyalty to these leaders rather than any intellectual argument about the rights and privileges of Parliament was a deciding factor in the strength of Cornish support for the King's cause. As Wedgewood says "when the Cornish army came into being for the King, the gentry who led it were convinced Royalists, but their men were first and foremost Cornishmen resolved to demonstrate their valour and vindicate the honour of their county....they disliked and despised their fellow Royalists only a little less than the enemy they came to fight".

[Cornish Terrier]

There be the 'nail on the head' suitably struck!

It had crossed my mind in my previous post to add something similar.

i.e. - the Cornishman would probably not have given two hoots about the King or Cromwell or whoever.

He would have been loyal to his squire or to the lord of the manor whichever side they were on but would more importantly have been loyal to Corwall.

[donne]

I've just managed to borrow from my local public library service another excellent book on the Civil War - 'Cornwall in the Great Civil War and Interregnum 1642-1660' by Mary Coate. It's quite a rare book but I discovered it tucked away in the HQ store for the library. First published in 1933, many of the documents quoted by the author were then in the private archives of the descendants of the Cornish families involved. My edition from the library was reprinted in 1963 by D Bradford Barton, Truro.

It contains lots of names, mainly gentry of various degrees. One name which struck me was that of Thomas WHITING, vicar of St Erth, who was ejected from his living during the Commonwealth, and was one of 20 Cornish clergy who petitioned for the restoration of his tithes in 1660. I see that Thomas WHITING, clerk, was signatory to an inventory of James JAMES in 1663, and a Robert WHITING, clerk, was a signatory of William JAMES' inventory in 1633 (Robert father of Thomas?). Other comments I found by googling was that, apparently, 'an illiterate and uneducated man' was put in Thomas WHITING's place who 'was so incapable that the squire was compelled to make the necessary entries in the register at the time of the baptisms of his two daughters'.

As a comment on the times, it is difficult to better the following exasperated statement which was written into the marriage registers of St Mary Magdalene, Launceston, and reproduced in Phillimores:

"Hereafter follow Marriages by Laymen according to the prophanes and giddynes of the times, without precedent or example in any Christian Kingdom or Commonwealth from the Birth of Christ unto this very year 1655"!

[Mal]

How did we manage to pick the wrong side three times in a row in the space of 160 years? Poor Cornwall...!