The Guildhall Putsch: The York Civic Corporation and Royalist Military Government, 1643–44

Abstract

In January 1643, a dispute over the election of the Lord Mayor of York led to the assertation of the authority of the Royalist military governor through armed force at the instigation of the King’s Lord-General in the North, the Earl of Newcastle. This paper takes a micro-historical approach to this event; analysing the mechanics of the coup, particularly the exchange of letters between the civic corporation and Newcastle, the state of the York city charter in the 1640 s, the legal arguments used by both the corporation and the Royalists and the after-effects of the incident on relations between the civic and military governments of the city. However, the primary focus of the article is on how Royalist administration functioned on the local level. Owing to the destruction of Royalist records following their defeat in 1644-45, Royalist administration occupies a limited position in the historiography of the British Civil Wars. This article aims at helping to correct this deficiency using civic corporations’ own records of their interactions with the Royalists, which typically survived the Civil Wars.