POLITICAL HISTORY nothing further seems to have come of the incident.^^' On i December he wrote from Oundle, Northamptonshire, that he ' has this week been in Rut- land, where by reason of the smallness of the county and the paucity of the cavaUers, the Commissioners and I have at once perfected the assessments of their estates, which amount not fully to £s'^o per annum' ; ^*° and in another letter of 7 February 1656 he sent him 'a duplicate of the several delinquents' estates which are decimated within the county of Rutland,' which comprises the names of Lord Campden of Exton, Wingfield Bodenham of Ryhall, esq., Clement Breton of Uppingham, doctor in divinity, and six others, and gives the total of the assessment as ^("43 6 8s. gd.^*^ The process of decimation seems to have proved more costly than was anticipated, for he also asks in this letter for _(ri,o8o to pay the militia under his command, on the ground that 'the taking ' Lord Westmorland's and Sir William Farmor's and some other great estates in Northamptonshire, 'hath made us fall as much short as we should have been over. And the like hath happened in Bedford, Huntingdon and Rutland as they are little countreys so had few delinquents and these very small estates (if any).'^*^ A list of the persons within his district com- mitted to gaol by Boteler inclosed in a letter to Thurloe of 20 March 1655 from Bedford, giving an account of some high-handed proceedings with respect to the mayor of that town, comprises twelve at Northampton, one at Huntingdon, and one at Bedford, and one also at Oakham — ^John Goodman, ' a pitiful drunken wretch and every way as prophane as the devil can make him (I think), hath no estate, lives upon the snatch altogether, and being a prophane jester to some gentlemen of the countrey.' ^** That he was an advocate of transportation seems evident from his request, in a letter of 14 April in the same year, that Thurloe would help him 'to a vent for those idle vile rogues that I have secured for the present, some in one county and some in another, being not able to find security for their peacible de- meanour, not fitt to live on this side, in some or other of our plantations. I could help you to 2 or 300 at 24 hours warning and the countreys would think themselves well ridd of them.' ^** The dissatisfaction caused by Boteler's autocratic methods of government must doubtless have helped to reconcile public opinion in Rutland as else- where to the idea of the Restoration. Some of the leading men of the Ibid. ™ Thurlor Pap. iv, 274. '" Ibid. 512. The complete list is as follows : — Lord Campden of Exton Wingfield Bodenham of Ryall, Esq. Clement Breton of Uppingham, Doctor in Divinity Arthur Warren of Whiscndine, Esq. Richard Bullingham of Ketton, Esq. Edward Heath of Cottesmore, Esq. . Sir Thomas Mackworth of Normanton, Bt. Richard Wingfield of Tickencoate, Esq. Euseby Pelsent of Liddington, Esq. . Of these, Lord Campden, Wingfield Bodenham, Clement Breton, Richard Bullingham, and Edward Heath, have already been noted as compounding ; see p. 196. '" He apparently received an encouraging answer (ibid. 541), but recurs to the topic in subsequent letters {Thurloe Pap. iv, 550, 695). '" Ibid. 632-3. '" Ibid. 695. 199 £ J. d. . 160
17
1 2
7
ity .
10
20
8
2
20
80
60
42
14
Sum tola 25 14
1 X+se 8 9
