Throughout the English Civil Wars, it was common for people to switch sides between Parliamentarians and Royalists; these people earned the nickname ‘turncoat’. Dr Patrick Little from our Lords 1640-1660 project explores two obscure figures in the Civil Wars and why they became turncoats.
The English Civil War divided communities along religious and political lines. But those divisions did not always extend to social networks, the ties of family, friendship or even neighbourhood, which often survived intact. Even the most convinced parliamentarian or most extreme royalist had personal connections with those on the other side. The initial choice of sides in the conflict may have been determined by religious or political beliefs, but it did not remove the bonds of friendship, family or community, which were maintained not just by affection and by a prudent need for an insurance policy against defeat, but also by the notion of ‘honour’ and of private obligation. It was within this context that the ‘turn-coat’ (or side-changer) became a relatively common phenomenon, and one that did not always meet with the condemnation usually meted out to a ‘traitor’, who served another nation and thus betrayed his own.
There are numerous turn-coats in the 1640-60 Commons volumes. Some, like Sir John Hotham and his son John, were executed by Parliament for defecting to the king; others were treated more leniently, such as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper and George Monck, who both served the king before joining Parliament, re-emerged at the Restoration as earl of Shaftesbury and duke of Albemarle, respectively. Here we shall consider two more obscure figures, both Dorset MPs, who changed their minds and switched sides: William Constantine and Sir Gerard Napper.
William Constantine, MP for Poole, was from a well-established east Dorset family, with links to Poole and also to Wimborne Minster, having married into the Hanham family. Encouraged by another local figure, Bartholomew Hall, Constantine became a successful lawyer. He became recorder of Poole in 1639, and he went on to serve the borough as an MP in both the Short and Long Parliaments. His parliamentary career was unremarkable, but from the summer of 1641 onwards he seems to have become increasingly concerned about the threat to England of Catholic fifth-columnists, and his fears were heightened by the Irish rebellion of October 1641. By the spring of 1642 he was a firm supporter of action against the king, and in the summer he returned to Poole to help organise the town’s defences. Initially, there were no doubts about Constantine’s allegiances: he continued to sit in Parliament, and he was critical of attempts by some west country gentlemen to arrange a local ceasefire in March 1643. But in mid-July he suddenly declared for the king, sending a letter to Poole resigning as recorder and advising them to surrender to the king before it was too late. The royalists were advancing from the west, and retribution would surely follow. ‘How some of you as have been most active will be handled I tremble to imagine, perhaps to the loss of life, doubtless [to the loss] of liberty and estate’ (Bodl., MS Tanner 62, fo. 170). Despite Constantine’s warnings, Poole stood firm against the royalists who arrived before their gates in later weeks. Parliament moved swiftly, summoning Constantine on 15 August, and by the end of September he had been disabled as an MP and his estates sequestered. Constantine, meanwhile, had fled to the king’s headquarters at Oxford, where he sat in the royalist parliament in January 1644.
There is no doubt that Constantine deserves the title ‘turn-coat’; but why did he do it? There was a degree of self-interest in his decision, as the king’s army approached, but that was not the only reason. As a lawyer, Constantine had become disillusioned with Parliament, not least with its increasingly irregular – even illegal – behaviour: in February 1643, for example, he opposed the arbitrary searching of chambers in the Inns of Court by Parliament’s officers. Perhaps the most important factor in Constantine’s change of sides was at once local and personal. His brother-in-law, John Hanham, a royalist officer, was the man chosen to secure the surrender of Poole just days after Constantine’s attempts to do the same. With the king’s army closing in, an already disgruntled Constantine drew closer to his royalist relatives, and was encouraged to turn his coat. Interestingly, after the parliamentarian victory at Marston Moor in July 1644, and the recapture of Dorset by the earl of Essex in the same period, Constantine tried to defect back again, surrendering himself to the governor of Poole. He was imprisoned, but not treated harshly, and by the end of 1645 he had regained both his freedom and his estates (on the payment of a fine). He was back in London, as a professional lawyer, during the summer of 1647, and there enjoyed the continuing favour of Dorset friends, including Bartholomew Hall. By using his friends and relatives on both sides of the divide, Constantine was able (in effect) to become a turn-coat twice over.
Sir Gerard Napper (or Napier) of More Crichel, was of higher social status than Constantine, being part of the East Dorset social set that included young wealthy landowners such as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper. Despite being known as ‘a good housekeeper’ (or host) to the local gentry, and a shrewd businessman, Napper was not universally liked. As Ashley Cooper admitted in private ‘[he was] of a temper inclined to envy, not obliging, and to speak as ill as he could of the absent’. (W.D. Christie, Life of Anthony Ashley Cooper, I, appx. I, p. xvii). In other respects, Napper’s views were conventional enough. Religiously, he seems to have conformed to the Church of England; politically, as MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, he was a moderate opponent of the crown. He was, however, increasingly unhappy with some of the demands made by the more radical elements in the House of Commons, and his absence from controversial votes may have marked him as a potential ally of the crown as early as May 1641. It may not be a coincidence that in the king, looking for allies, made Napper a baronet at this time. Napper’s attendance in the Commons ceased soon afterwards, and he became an active royalist by the beginning of June 1642, and was appointed to the king’s commission of array in Dorset.
On the surface, Sir Gerard Napper seems to be a conventional royalist; but his career during the first year of the Civil War suggests that his allegiances were in fact still very fluid. His relationship with Parliament was certainly ambiguous. He was not immediately disabled from sitting, with another Dorset MP, Sir Water Erle, defending him in the chamber in April 1643, saying that he had privately contributed money, horses and weapons to the cause. As a result, the case against Napper was dropped, and he remained an MP. The lack of evidence for Napper’s ‘delinquency’ shows that his royalism was at best passive during the early stages of the war. Only with the royalist invasion of Dorset in July 1643, did Napper emerge as an active royalist. On 3 August, Napper was appointed with Ashley Cooper to treat for the surrender of the parliamentarian garrisons at Dorchester and Weymouth. In January 1644 he went further, joining the king at Oxford, and sitting in the rival House of Commons convened there. It was only at this stage that the Westminster Parliament finally disabled him as an MP. Characteristically, once he had declared unequivocally for the king, Napper began to have second thoughts. By the beginning of March 1644, when the fortune of war was beginning to turn against the king, he joined his friend, Ashley Cooper, in defecting to the parliamentarians. Understandably, the government in London was wary of Napper. He did not regain his seat in Parliament, and his lands remained sequestered. In fact, he was perhaps unique in being sequestered by both parliamentarians and royalists in the mid-1640s! Through the good offices of Ashley Cooper, Sir Walter Erle and other major local figures, he soon became accepted in Dorset, but even ten years on he was still considered a ‘suspected person’ by the authorities in London.
Like Constantine, Napper was naturally guided by self-interest, and his allegiance depended in large part on which side held sway in Dorset. Both men were heavily influenced by friends and family – in Napper’s case by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, whose initial royalism, and subsequent defection, had a strong bearing on his own decisions. There were differences between the two men, however. The proud and irascible Napper does not seem to have been troubled by an over-active conscience, whereas Constantine had religious and professional scruples that had a major influence on his actions. Interestingly, it was Constantine who was more successful in navigating the political landscape later in the 1640s, even returning to his legal practise, while Napper remained a suspicious presence in London. By contrast, both men still had friends in Dorset, and were readily welcomed back into local society, where their coat-turning was apparently forgiven, if not entirely forgotten.
P.L.
Biographies of William Constantine, Sir Gerard Napper, Sir John Hotham, John Hotham, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, George Monck and Sir Walter Erle all appear in the 1640-60 Commons volumes.
Further reading:
Andrew Hopper, Turncoats and Renegadoes: changing sides during the English Civil Wars (Oxford, 2012)
