A HISTORY OF NORFOLK it if he could, which I thinke he did, for I never saw him since. The deponent knew not any person engaged in that commotion. He heard from that Curtis that Sir Henry Felton and Sir Ralph Skipwith ^ were forward men in the king's service there, but he knowes neyther of them. There is one Mr. Cot in Yarmouth, a great confident of Colonell Blake's for deUvery of that towne.' ' Further on the deponent goes on to state that ' Curtis, Colonell Blague's (Blake's) man, told mee upon the last rising in Norfolke there would fifteen hundred foote and fifteen hundred horse appeare, which were in readiness, and that they had one hundred barrells of powder, and much money att command, and that he receaved this information from Captaine Kitchinman, who was an actor therein. I never heard of one hundred men that appeared there yet. . . . When Blague came over with mee, he brought blanke commissions under the king's great scale for sheriffs of those two counties of Suffolk and Norfolke, but how hee disposed of them I cannott tell. He spoke of Sir Henry Felton for SufiFolke and one Mr. Paston for Norfolke if he could get them to accept the same. But whether they did or no I cannott tell.' ^ The Long Parliament was turned out in 1652, and the next year Crom- well ordered that the county of Norfolk should send ten members, Norwich, Lynn, and Yarmouth two each, and disfranchised Thetford and Rising, though giving their inhabitants votes for the county.* Risings being threatened in 1654, a local Norwich company of volunteers 120 in number, were enlisted to be ready at any warning, but it does not appear that they were ever called out.^ In 1656 ten members were sent to Parliament from Norfolk, but five of them, namely Sir Ralph Hare, Sir William D'Oyly, Philip Wodehouse, John Buxton, and Thomas Sotherton were among the 161 members who were refused entrance to the House because they had not certificates that they had been approved by Cromwell's council. A member was bold enough to move a protest against this outrageous breach of the constitution, but {the 161 not being allowed to vote) it was lost by 29 to 125. When, on the death of Oliver and the supersession of Richard Cromwell, the way was opened for the restoration of Charles, probably few cities were more glad to welcome back the Stuarts than Norwich. Curiously enough it appears that there was a very good chance of Charles II landing in Norfolk instead of at Dover, for when Hyde was writing to Mordaunt on 3 May, 1659, it was clearly in his mind that Charles might land in Norfolk. He says : ' I should be glad to hear from you, that, in either of the cases I have putt, or any other that is like to fall out. Sir Horatio Townshend would be able to make any notable appearance in Norfolk, which you know lies best for our landing.' ' Mordaunt on 27 May, says : ' We humbly leave to your con- siderations where you will land ; and whether in one body or two ; in Kent, or Norfolk, or more westward.' ^ The History of the Rebel/ion^ also mentions a plot set on foot by Lord Willoughby of Parham and Sir Horatio Townshend ' He had been concerned in Charles I's escape in 1646 and is several times mentioned in the examination of Michael Hudson. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. i, 578. ' Ibid. 580.
- Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 400. ' Ibid.
' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. x, App. vi, 196. ' Ibid. 201. ' Clarendon, op. cit. (ed. Macray, 1888), vi, 1 1 1.
