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By Root 1061 0

to anticipated resistance.12 Many others were pressed from the general population – the common practice in the case of foreign service since the Trained Bands were too precious to be sent abroad. Impressment, by contrast, was often the occasion for ridding villages of undesirables. Officeholders in place for perhaps one year would have to live with their neighbours for much longer than that. It is easy to see why, when asked to pick some men to serve abroad, they might not choose the most popular and hard-working lads in the village or their neighbours? most promising sons. The home counties were responsible for equipping conscripts from local rates, and paying their expenses to the point of embarkation.13 The mobilization against the Covenanters might have been regarded as a defensive action, allowing the use of the Trained Bands rather than conscripts, and in allowing the use of substitutes the Privy Council had significantly weakened the potential of the war effort.

Pressing men for military service was never easy, but in early 1639 it intersected with domestic discontents. George Plowright, constable of Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, was the kind of village worthy who provided the backbone of English local government. His family had been freeholders in the village for over a century and he had served not only as constable but also as an overseer of the poor, sidesman and churchwarden.14 However, conflicts over royal policies during the 1630s intersected with local rivalries to make his life very difficult. When he went to Northampton in 1638/9 to pay ship money receipts to the sheriff his horse was requisitioned for the royal posts, even though he was himself on royal service. He blamed Thomas Bacon, with whom he had clashed previously over religion and the forced loan, and with whom he had been in dispute over ship money since 1635. In retaliation Plowright brought a case against Bacon in Star Chamber. In March 1639 Plowright was pressed for service against the Covenanters: something highly unusual given his status and office. He again blamed Bacon, who had been accused of using impressment maliciously in the past and who had been served with a writ to appear in Star Chamber five days before Plowright was pressed. Conveniently, it would mean that Plowright would be in York when the case came before the court.

Forced to intervene, the Privy Council was in an uncomfortable position. It could hardly leave Sir Rowland St John, the Deputy Lieutenant ultimately responsible for the impressment, twisting in the wind. On the other hand, from the point of view of the Privy Council, Plowright was clearly on the side of the angels in Northamptonshire. He had the support of Robert Sibthorpe, a scourge of the local Puritans and an almost embarrassingly keen supporter of Charles and Laud in ecclesiastical matters, who during the Forced Loan controversy had preached that consent was not necessary for the King to raise money from his subjects. Sibthorpe interceded with St John on Plowright’s behalf, enabling Plowright to send a deputy to join the army, and his intervention clearly reflected political solidarity. Sibthorpe had brought a case against Bacon over ship money, and noted Plowright’s service in collecting the duty despite the hostility of local ‘Puritans’, expressing regret that his reward might now be to risk perishing at the hand of the Scottish Puritans. Before the Privy Council, though, St John maintained that Bacon had had no role in the pressing of Plowright, and that Plowright had been guilty of malpractices. The Privy Council had little choice but to uphold the authority of the Deputy Lieutenant, and Plowright was imprisoned and landed with the costs of both parties.15

Here and elsewhere, the local met the national. Rivalries and hostilities among the local gentry and middling sort might become invested with a larger political and religious significance. This does not reflect a fatal weakness of the whole mobilization since large numbers of men were raised, but it does demonstrate the potential of the Covenanters