The Intersection between London and the Regions at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century: The Social and Political Life of William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick (Later 1st Earl of Devonshire)

Peter Edwards

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Chapter 11 The Intersection between London and the Regions at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century

The Social and Political Life of William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick (Later 1st Earl of Devonshire)

In: Monarchy, the Court, and the Provincial Elite in Early Modern Europe

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Peter Edwards

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 225–246

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004694149_013

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Abstract

In early modern England the regional elite not only dominated the rural shires socially, politically and economically, their reach extended into many towns too. From their country seats, which they ran as petty fiefdoms, they controlled the lives of thousands of inhabitants either directly or indirectly. They derived their income by letting out land to tenant farmers or to those who exploited other natural resources, or from exploiting those resources themselves. Socially, they met their peers at events such as the quarter sessions and assizes, at sporting occasions like hunting and horse racing or at gatherings at each other’s houses. Extensive patronage gave them local political influence, as did sitting on the magistrates’ bench, serving as sheriff or under-sheriff, or as a commissioner for the militia or the collection of taxes, as well as acting as the king’s representative in the shire as Lord- or Deputy-Lieutenant.

There was a metropolitan dimension too. Politically, the regional elite exerted an influence through attendance in one or other chamber of Parliament or by influencing the election of someone to the Commons. If these duties took them to London, so did waiting on the monarch at Court or pursuing a suit through one of the central law courts. As the number of elite sojourners in London increased from the late sixteenth century onwards, a social season developed, thereby attracting more people to the capital. Their presence there had a profound commercial effect too. In 1948, Jack Fisher published an essay on the development of London as a centre of conspicuous consumption in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an essay which essentially marked the beginning of the debate on the consumer revolution. Writing of the situation in the United Provinces, de Vries distinguished between ‘old’ and ‘new’ luxuries, the former, which were purchased by the aristocracy and emphasized ‘grandeur or exquisite refinement’, could only be parodied by others, whereas the latter, bought by the prosperous middling orders, provided comfort, sociability and enjoyment.

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Monarchy, the Court, and the Provincial Elite in Early Modern Europe

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004694149

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 20 Feb 2024

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Part 1 Personal Monarchy

Part 2 Rulers and the Provincial Elite

Part 3 Government, Towns and the Economy

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Chapter 11 The Intersection between London and the Regions at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century

The Social and Political Life of William Cavendish, Baron Hardwick (Later 1st Earl of Devonshire)

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Monarchy, the Court, and the Provincial Elite in Early Modern Europe

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