• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Disappointment at this outcome was probably part of the reason for the riot at Smithfield a week later. On 15 February a buyer refused to pay excise and tried to remove his livestock. When he was stopped a crowd gathered in his defence. It was dispersed but another crowd gathered later, burning down the excise house, and £80 or £100 was ‘scattered and purloined’. The later crowd was led by butchers, one of whom said that they would ‘bear down the excise by force’. There certainly was force – ‘many of the officers of the excise were beaten’ – but it was limited and focused. At least some of the money was scattered, not stolen, and it was the officers and their house that were attacked. The rioters also took the trouble to spoil the records kept by the officers. Clearly there was method in the violence.55

The official response was again unyielding – measures were taken to punish the ringleaders and to police the market more effectively. Ordinances followed and included some measures to protect the poor – the excise was not to be levied on those receiving alms, or by poll except by consent, and local officeholders were given some powers to examine sub-commissioners suspected of abuse or corruption. But the main message was clear: Parliament would listen to complaints, but in the meantime ‘expect all persons whatsoever shall duly pay all sums imposed… by way of excise’. The excise house was rebuilt as a private dwelling so that future damage could be prosecuted as a felony. Newsbooks echoed the message – the excise was unavoidable until the army was disbanded. The Moderate Intelligencer went further:

[the rioters] have made a rod for themselves; for had they been quiet, and paid excise, the soldiery might have been nulled and the cause taken away… whereas now, its probable the Parliament will be necessitated to keep an army to preserve themselves, those they employ and pay the debts of the kingdom.56

As with the recreation days, therefore, there was no initial concession. Just as the Puritan calendar was crucial to the cultural aims of the Presbyterians, the excise was no less essential to their position, and preferable to a land tax. On 4 March it was the assessment that the Lords, an assembly of landholders, refused to renew.57 The winter of 1646/7 saw a resurgent royalism, associated with an attachment to tradition and hostility to the military and the administrative measures necessary to support it. This was not necessarily territory that belonged to Presbyterians. Nonetheless, their immediate prospects looked good. On 11 March one of William Lilly’s clients wanted to know ‘If Presbytery will continue any long time’.58

The Smithfield riot may have had an indirect effect on parliamentary politics, galvanizing the campaign to disband the army. On the day of the riot a petition had been received from Suffolk calling for a Presbyterian settlement, the suppression of toleration and the disbandment of the army, and it was Presbyterians in Parliament who proposed, four days later, cuts in the number of horse and the disbandment of all infantry units not in garrisons. These moves to disband the army were quickly connected with the mobilization of new forces for service in Ireland. On 20 February a letter arrived from Dublin in which Ormond detailed his woes, including the refusal of the Dublin population to continue to support his troops. He was finally and unequivocally a discredited political force, and Dublin was now very vulnerable.59 With the Confederates in the ascendant a military response was imperative. Disbandment of the English forces became a means of releasing troops for Ireland, and easing the burdens on the English taxpayer.

Although this was a virtuous circle it was being proposed by politicians hostile to the New Model Army. Within the New Model it was feared that arrears of pay would not be honoured, and a movement developed within the army to demand that soldiers would not be pressed to serve in Ireland without first receiving arrears for service already given, and that soldiers should be given indemnity