POLITICAL HISTORY Suffolk sent a very large number of their trained bands on this expedition, far more in proportion than other counties. To the memorable Long Parliament of 1640 Sir Thomas Wodehouse and Framlingham Gawdy were sent to represent Thetford, their unsuc- cessful opponent being an advanced sectarian, one Tobias Frere. Sir John Holland and Sir Edmund Moundeford were the members for the county (the former afterwards making place for John Potts, esq., and taking his seat for Castle Rising, where his colleague was Sir Christopher Hatton, after- wards replaced by Sir Robert Hatton). For the city of Norwich Richard Harman and Richard Cateline were the members. Framlingham Gawdy took careful notes of the proceedings, which are of very considerable interest. The friction was increasing daily. On 3 September, 1640, the king's commission of array for Norfolk was prepared, which was afterwards de- nounced by Parliament, when in 1642' it sent down most of the Norfolk members to the county as a committee to suppress the commission.*' The letter of directions to the committee boldly stated that it was to be feared that the king intended to make war against the Parliament, and that under colour of raising a guard for his person the inhabitants of Norfolk might be brought together. Sir Robert de Grey was the only prominent person who stood up for the commission. The Parliament was in touch with the bailiffs of Yarmouth and ordered them, in March, 1641, to watch for suspicious persons coming from beyond the seas and to intercept all letters, &c., and in April, 1642, a similar motion was made as to Lynn, which was seconded by no less a person than Oliver Cromwell. It was in March, 1642, that the king definitely refused the demands pressed upon him, and, when the Parliament's commissioners at Newmarket again pressed him that the militia might be embodied as asked for by the Parliament, he ' swore by God that it should not be so for a single hour.' There were soon two proclamations issued, one by Parlia- ment directing the militia to be put in training, the other by the king forbidding it. All the summer of i 642 both parties were quietly making preparations for the inevitable struggle. By August Cromwell, himself a Norfolk man by descent on his mother's side, had seized the magazine at Cambridge and intercepted most of the college plate which the university had loyally granted to the king. In July, 1642, a Captain Moses Treswell came to Norwich with a commission on behalf of the king to raise 100 volunteers to go to Newark, but on beating of his enlistment drums against the orders of the city, he was committed to prison and sent up to London.* ' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 382. ' Lords^ Journals, v, 252. ' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 38 1. There are a number of curious minutes in the Common Council book of the Norwich corporation referring to this incident. The first, dated 29 July, 1642, states : 'This day Captain Moses Treswell brought a commission under the hand and seal of the earl of Lynsey for the levying of a hundred men and volunteers and conducting them to Newark-upon-Trent. He is required that he might beat up to drum. It was with one gen'all consent agreed that he should not at all beat to any drum and so he was required.' On 30 July : ' Mr. Mayor did give order for the writing of a letter to the earl of Lynsey,' but what the letter contained, or the subject to which it had reference, is not mentioned. On the same date it is recorded that : ' Samuel Vonte did acknowledge that he hath a bag of money scaled up for Captayne Treswell, and his chamberlain said that there was likewise a cloak, bag, and a scarlet coat, and a 507
