Charlwood Lawton

Charlwood Lawton (1660–1721) was an English lawyer and phrase-making pamphleteer, a Whig of Jacobite views. He invented the term "Whiggish Jacobite", used to point out the difference between those who shared his opinions (who included Sir James Montgomery, 4th Baronet and Robert Ferguson), and the nonjuror faction. After the Battle of La Hogue of 1692, the exiled James II of England became more receptive to Lawton's range of arguments. Lawton promoted "civil comprehension", i.e. the removal of all religious tests for the holding of public office.[1] He was a prolific author of subversive literature, to whom some uncertain attributions are made. He is credited with the concept that the Glorious Revolution was a constitutional charade that fell short of its ideals.[2]

Life

He was the son of Ralf Lawton, of Egham, Surrey, surgeon general in the army. He entered as a fellow commoner Wadham College, Oxford, 23 August 1677. He matriculated on 7 December 1677, but left university without taking a degree.[3] He became involved in Monmouth's Rebellion of 1685, and had to lie low. For a time he then lived near Windsor Forest.[4]

Lawton became acquainted with William Penn by a chance meeting on a coach in the summer of 1686, and the two remained friends for life.[3] William Popple met Penn in 1687, at Windsor where he was staying with Lawton.[5]

Lawton was called to the bar from the Middle Temple in 1688.[3] Aaron Smith was a militant Whig for whom Lawton procured a royal pardon, through Penn, in 1688, and John Trenchard another in the same year; according to Lawton's memoir of Penn, the Smith pardon preceded the Trenchard pardon.[6][7]

After the Revolution, Lawton met the Jacobite envoy Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston in 1690.[8] Preston being a Protestant loyalist to King James, and Lawton's faction being a counterweight to the Catholic influence on the exile king, it was a setback when Preston and John Ashton were arrested on a journey to see him (the so-called Whig-Jacobite Plot).[9][10]

Lawton corresponded with John Drummond, 1st Earl of Melfort from 1692.[8] Subsequently Lawton was in touch with King James's more moderate adviser Charles Middleton, 2nd Earl of Middleton.[11] He also canvassed for support among the Green Ribbon Club, and flattered Sir William Whitlock, who was in transition to becoming a Jacobite Tory.[12] At the time of the 1696 assassination plot against William III, Lawton was implicated by name as a go-between for James II and Parliament.[13]

Lawton acted in 1700 as Penn's agent in London.[3] At this point, which was during Penn's second visit to Pennsylvania, he was facing determined opposition, in particular from Jeremiah Basse and Edward Randolph.[14] Lawton was tasked with assembling a group of Penn's supporters from his English network, and this involved contacting Robert Harley. Others to be brought in were Sir Edward Seymour, 4th Baronet, Sir Christopher Musgrave, 4th Baronet, and Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, of Whitehaven. Penn was concerned to have his reputation boosted by a pamphlet with a show of strength from the Tory ranks.[15] Lawton then became a close adviser to Harley.[16]

Lawton's continuing good relations with the nonjurors were illustrated by a dedication or address of a section in Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus after 1701; this was the work of George Hickes, one of the pinnacles of nonjuror scholarship, and Lawton was substituted for the late Bartholomew Shower, a Tory lawyer.[17] Not a practicing barrister, he knew prominent lawyers, including John Somers and George Treby; Lawton lobbied Somers over the private act on behalf of John Burke, 9th Earl of Clanricarde.[18]

At the time of his death, on 18 June 1721, Lawton was described as "of Northampton".[3]

Works

Lawton was a prolific writer of pamphlets, including an early group of Jacobite propaganda tracts. In 1693 his hope was for a bloodless restoration of James II.[19] Lawton had the co-operation of the printer William Anderton in distributing his work. Anderton was executed on a treason charge.[20] Related are:

  • A Short state of our condition with relation to the present Parliament (1693)[21] This pamphlet was called the "hush-money paper" because of its criticism of the use of secret payments; Lawton has been credited with inventing the term "hush money".[22][23] He alleged that £16,000 of secret service money had been paid out in bribes over three days.[24]
  • Some Paradoxes Presented for a New-Year's-Gift from the Old, to the New Orthodox, Serving for an Index to the Revolution (1693)[25]
  • A French Conquest neither Desirable nor Practicable (1693), printed by David Douglas.[7]
  • The Jacobite Principles Vindicated (1693, later in Somers Tracts); here Lawton argued on contractarian grounds.[26] The subject was topical, with John Wildman arguing that the "original contract" for monarchy had been renewed by the Bill of Rights 1689, and Anderton concluding that William III was therefore accountable to it.[27]
  • A Letter concerning Sir William Whitlock's Bill for Trials in Cases of Treason (1694);[28]

Another group were:[3]

  • A Letter concerning Civil Comprehension, 1705;
  • Second Letter concerning Civil Comprehension, 1706;
  • a letter sent to John Tillotson.[29]

These were republished in the Somers Tracts. Letters addressed by Lawton to White Kennett are in the Lansdowne MS. 990, ff. 15, 83.[3]

Lawton planned to publish memoirs, and was said to have left papers relating to the affairs of his time. One such document, dealing with the life of Penn for a short period after Lawton knew him, was printed in 1834, in vol. iii. of the Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.[3]

In literature

Lawton is referenced in Waverley, in the company of the other writers James Drake and Nicholas Amhurst.[30]

Family

Lawton married Margaret, fourth daughter of William Lawton and Hester, who was the second daughter of Sir Edward Longueville, 1st Baronet.[31] He left a son Henry.[3]

References
  • Erskine-Hill, Howard (1979). "Literature and the Jacobite Cause". Modern Language Studies. 9 (3): 15–28. doi:10.2307/3194277. JSTOR 3194277.
  • Erskine-Hill, Howard (1981). "Alexander Pope: The Political Poet in His Time". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 15 (2): 123–148. doi:10.2307/2738239. JSTOR 2738239.
  • Glickman, Gabriel (2003). "The Career of Sir John Hynde Cotton (1686-1752)". The Historical Journal. 46 (4): 817–841. doi:10.1017/S0018246X03003315. JSTOR 4091597. S2CID 163000015.
  • Hopkins, Paul (2004). "Smith, Aaron". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25765. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Monod, Paul (1987). "Jacobitism and Country Principles in the Reign of William III". The Historical Journal. 30 (2): 289–310. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00021452. JSTOR 2639196. S2CID 159888619.
  • Olson, Alison Gilbert (1961). "William Penn, Parliament and Proprietary Government". The William and Mary Quarterly. 18 (2): 176–195. doi:10.2307/1918542. JSTOR 1918542.
  • Robbins, Caroline (1967). "Absolute Liberty: The Life and Thought of William Popple, 1638-1708". The William and Mary Quarterly. 24 (2): 190–223. doi:10.2307/1920836. JSTOR 1920836.
  • Szechi, D. (1993). "The Jacobite Revolution Settlement, 1689-1696". The English Historical Review. 108 (428): 610–628. doi:10.1093/ehr/CVIII.428.610. JSTOR 574749.
  • Thompson, Martyn P. (1988). "Significant Silences in Locke's Two Treatises of Government: Constitutional History, Contract and Law". The Historical Journal. 31 (2): 275–294. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00012887. JSTOR 2639214. S2CID 154837418.

Notes
  1. Monod, Paul Kleber, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788 (Cambridge University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-521-44793-5), pp. 23-26, accessed 17 June 2013
  2. Glickman 2003, p. 823.
  3. Archbold 1901.
  4. Erskine-Hill 1981, pp. 141–142.
  5. Robbins 1967, p. 203.
  6. Sydney George Fisher, The true William Penn (1900) p. 264; archive.org.
  7. Hopkins 2004.
  8. Monod 1987, p. 298.
  9. Szechi 1993, p. 616.
  10. James Mackintosh (1839). The History of England. Longman. p. 10. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  11. Erskine-Hill 1979, p. 24 note 27.
  12. Monod 1987, p. 300.
  13. Monod 1987, pp. 304–305.
  14. Olson 1961, p. 182.
  15. Olson 1961, p. 188.
  16. Paul Kleber Monod (4 March 1993). Jacobitism and the English People, 1688-1788. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-521-44793-5. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  17. Jack Arthur Walter Bennett (1982). The Humane Medievalist: And Other Essays in English Literature and Learning, from Chaucer to Eliot. Ed. di Storia e Letteratura. p. 231. GGKEY:552YP7WE2FC. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  18. TNA, Somers Cocks Family of Reigate Priory.
  19. Ian Higgins (5 May 1994). Swift's Politics: A Study in Disaffection. Cambridge University Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-521-41814-0. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  20. Eveline Cruickshanks (1995). The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 139. ISBN 978-1-85285-119-4. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  21. Text on archive.org.
  22. Esther Mijers; David Onnekink (2007). Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-Stadholder in Its International Context. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 193 note 72. ISBN 978-0-7546-8639-2. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  23. William Cobbett; John Wright; Great Britain. Parliament; Thomas Curson Hansard, Scotland. Parliament (1809). The parliamentary history of England, from the earliest period to the year 1803: From which last-mentioned epoch it is continued downwards in the work entitled "Hansard's Parliamentary debates". T.C. Hansard for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown. p. Appendix IX p. xcix. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  24. Charles Ivar McGrath; Christopher J. Fauske (2008). Money, Power, and Print: Interdisciplinary Studies on the Financial Revolution in the British Isles. Associated University Presse. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-87413-027-0. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  25. Esther Mijers; David Onnekink (2007). Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-Stadholder in Its International Context. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 192 note 65. ISBN 978-0-7546-8639-2. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  26. Thompson 1988, p. 279.
  27. Esther Mijers; David Onnekink (2007). Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-Stadholder in Its International Context. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-7546-8639-2. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  28. Esther Mijers; David Onnekink (2007). Redefining William III: The Impact of the King-Stadholder in Its International Context. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 177 note 2. ISBN 978-0-7546-8639-2. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  29. Sir Walter Scott (1813). A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on the Most Entertaining Subjects: Reign of King James II. Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies. pp. 367–372. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
  30. Walter Scott (sir, bart [novels, collected]) (1870). Waverley novels. Centenary ed. p. 54. Retrieved 22 February 2013.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  31. Thomas Wotton; Edward Kimber; Richard A. Johnson (1771). The Baronetage of England: Containing a Genealogical and Historical Account of All the English Baronets Now Existing ... Illustrated with Their Coats of Arms ... To which is Added an Account of Such Nova Scotia Baronets as are of English Families; and a Dictionary of Heraldry ... by E. Kimber and R. Johnson. G. Woodfall. pp. 365–6. Retrieved 21 February 2013.
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