A HISTORY OF NORFOLK a close preserve for them or their nominees until it was extinguished by the Act of 1832.^ A striking example of the lawlessness of the period occurred in 1775, when the Norwich coach was ' held up ' in Epping Forest by seven highwaymen, and the guard was shot after he had killed three of his opponents. 'Coke of Holkham ' in 1780' presented a petition praying the House to guard against unnecessary expenditure, to abolish sinecure places and pensions, and to resist the increasing influence of the crown. In the election of the year Astley and Coke at last came together at the head of the poll. Coke beating Grey by six votes only, Wodehouse being last. The election of 1784 was a triangular duel between Astley, Coke, and Wodehouse. Coke was in this election severely lampooned and attacked for certain game prosecutions and actions for trespass which he had brought, and there is no doubt that his overbearing ways and fondness for game preservation did him more harm at the poll than all his services to agriculture did him good. He must have lost many votes, too, by the accusation that he had sold his party for a peerage, or as the election ballad put it : Your countenance told us, For a peerage you sold us. Ultimately, finding his case hopeless, he wisely withdrew, apparently taking a very despondent view of the position of the Whig party, saying. While I lament the loss of your confidence as it affects myself, I feel a more serious concern for the consequences of that loss to the Whig interest, which my family was in this county brought forward to support in the year 1768, and which now seems threatened with a total overthrow by the machinations of its enemies and by the temporary prejudices of many who should be its supporters.' He was, in spite of his forebodings, re-elected in 1790, and continued a member till the Reform Bill of 1832, forty years in all, becoming the father of the House. The French Revolution at first greatly excited the quasi-revolutionist party in Norwich. Banquets were given at the ' Maid's Head ' and else- where, and the ' Rights of Man,' the ' Philosophers of France,' &c., were toasted. But the atrocities of the Revolution soon caused a great revulsion of feeling in the more thinking classes, and by 1792 pledges were freely and publicly entered into by many to support the constitution of King, Lords, and Commons. A great deal of inflammatory placarding and excitement to revolt was kept up for some time by local ' Simon Tappertits', and, indeed, ' How this place ever came to return members is a mystery. It first sent members 5 January, 1557, but there was never any trade or population to justify a single member. There was 'never a grant of a borough or of any municipal rights there.' Mr. Beloc (Nor/. J re A. x'n, 185) says that in 1642 and 1649 there were only twenty-five burgesses, and that the burgess tenements had been bought up partly by the Howards, partly by the Cholmondeleys of Houghton ; a few remain in the family of Howard of Westacre. But the whole thing was a perfect farce, the Howards electing one member and the Walpoles the other. ' ' Coke of Holkham,' who ' gloried in the reputation of being the first commoner in England,' was by birth a Roberts, being the son of Wenham Roberts, who changed his name to Coke on succeeding to the Coke estates in 1 759. The services he rendered to Norfolk agriculture can hardly be overestimated, for though he did not, as is generally said, introduce the turnip, he very thoroughly exploited it. A full account of his work will be found in the Trans. Roy. j4gric. Soc. (3rd ser.), vi, 1-14.
- Mason, op. cit. 454.
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