Note 262 — Chapter VII

The letter of Cromwell to the Mayor and Burgesses of Canterbury (Letters, 148) is now in the British Museum; it was put into my hands by the kindness of Mr. Brodie of the Public Record Office. It was overlooked at the time of the compilation of the tenth volume of the Calendar, and escaped the search of Froude and Friedmann, both of whom discuss the details of this election at some length. Its discovery throws much fresh light on the history of one of the most famous cases of arbitrary interference in the choice of members to Parliament that has come down to us from Tudor times. The reply of the Mayor (Cal. x. 929) is comparatively well known. Froude has printed it in full (vol. iii. p. 347), but has misread the name of one of the burgesses, which is ‘Darkenall’ or ‘Derknall,’ not ‘Sacknell.’