‘Voluntary Bounty and Devotion to the Service of God’? Lay Patronage, Protest and the Creation of the Parish of St Paul Covent Garden, 1629–41

The earl of Bedford’s Covent Garden development in the 1630s is famous for its bold, classical design and its emphasis on uniform housing, aimed at creating an exclusive gentry enclave. It has been seen by recent historians as providing a model of Charles I’s ideals of order and symmetry that would both mirror and facilitate an orderly society. The importance of the development in the political and cultural history of the period is clear. However, another significant aspect of the Covent Garden development has largely escaped the attention of historians. For Covent Garden was not merely an architectural scheme or commercial development; it also resulted in the creation of a new parish in the heart of the emerging West End, a short distance from Whitehall Palace. The building of an entirely new church accompanied by the

The earl of Bedford's Covent Garden development in the 1630s is famous for its bold, classical design and its emphasis on uniform housing, aimed at creating an exclusive gentry enclave. It has been seen by recent historians as providing a model of Charles Archbishop Laud through to the King himself. The manner in which problems of authority and identity in the new parish were argued over also helps to shed new light on many of the more controversial features of the 1630s, from conflicts over the boundaries between lay and clerical authority to concerns over popular petitioning. As we will see, behind the order and symmetry of Covent Garden's classical architecture lay the messy reality of factional conflict, power struggles, popular petitions, and resentful stalemate.

I
We should begin with the developer of Covent Garden, the fourth Earl of Bedford, and the scope and nature of his ambitions for the development. Recent historiography Journals, IV,178;Commons' Journals II,141,148,162,172,215). The dearth of previous cases in Commons' Journals or Lords' Journals would certainly suggest this.
A later ordinance of September 1654 empowered trustees to recommend unions or divisions of parishes: C. Firth and R. Rait (eds.), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum 1642Interregnum -1660Interregnum (3 vols., 1911, II, pp. 1000-06. 4 has demonstrated that many of the most distinctive architectural aspects of Covent Garden were actually dictated by Charles I and Inigo Jones, who made significant changes to the plot of the buildings and enforced on Bedford strict regulations on building materials and architectural uniformity. 4 It is nevertheless important to resist the temptation to see Bedford as a passive figure who had been manipulated into paying for the larger architectural vision of Inigo Jones and the king. Instead, it is instructive to consider the development of Covent Garden not merely from the perspective of Whitehall, but quite literally from that of Bedford House. Bedford seems to have always intended that the development should constitute an independent parish, and was emphatic that his own older residence of Bedford House should form part of this new parish, despite the fact that this would involve awkwardly extending the new parish boundary down to the Strand.
The earl's desire to include Bedford House as part of his new development also explains one of the oddities of Covent Garden's famous piazza: that its southern side had no houses. 5 To nineteenth-century critics this was an obvious architectural flaw, but this anomaly becomes far more comprehensible when we factor in Bedford House and its gardens, which formed a distant fourth side to the development. The lack of houses therefore provided an uninterrupted vista of Covent Garden piazza from a raised walkway within the grounds of Bedford House. Moreover, recent research would seem to indicate that, contemporaneous with the development of the piazza, additions were made to the new north range of the Bedford House complex 5 that faced the new development, and a large Italianate garden laid out. As a result, Bedford House itself could thus be seen as forming a planned element of the piazza. 6 If Covent Garden was visually and conceptually in the earl of Bedford's 'backyard', this was also emblematic of how Bedford saw the prospective parish of Covent Garden and social relations within it. While Bedford undoubtedly had strong commercial motives for the development (and indeed cut costs and ensured that most of the actual building was done by leasees), there is a danger in simply portraying him as a commercial developer. It was being reported in 1632 that Bedford was erecting at Covent Garden 'a newe town or edifices in the nature therof' and in many ways this was true. 7 This was to be virtually a new 'town' at the heart of Westminster that would fall directly under Bedford's control as its principal resident. Even before the building began Bedford was proposing that he be allowed the 'power to keepe a Markett everie weeke' in Covent Garden 'on such daie as the said Earle shall thinke most fit for the said Inhabitants'. 8 As we will see, he also intended to control the appointment and payment of the minister of the new parish, and his clients and supporters moved swiftly to try to take control of local affairs. The ordinance that finally established the new parish not only granted the earl the patronage of the living in perpetuity, but more unusually even exempted Bedford House from a range of parish rates. 9 While Malcolm Smuts entitled his study of the leasees of Covent Garden 'the court and its neighbourhood', it is arguably just as important to study the 6 D. Duggan, 'The fourth side of Covent 6 perspective of 'Bedford House and its neighbourhood' in order to understand the social dynamics of the new parish. Bedford's vision, then, rested on his assumption of his dominance in the areayet this was no rural backwater, but the more complex environment of the early modern metropolis. It was his determination to make a social and political reality of this dominance that would trigger a great deal of the unrest that followed.
Historians' attention has tended to focus on the problems that Bedford had met in gaining his license from the crown to build in Covent Garden in the first place (given the restrictions on building in early modern London) and his further setbacks when the conditions of the original license were subsequently questioned in Star Chamber. This resulted in 1635 in a substantial fine of £2000 for Bedford's supposed breach of the capital's building regulations. 10 It is often implied that all went smoothly in Covent Garden after these proceedings, but this is to ignore a whole series of subsequent conflicts that were bound up with the earl of Bedford's building of a new church as part of the development. It is the ramifications of this decision, and the attempt to extend this into the creation of a new parish, which will be explored here. But things were not to be quite so straightforward. In particular, a new church raised issues of lay and clerical authority: how far could this new development be taken to constitute a new parish? And who should appoint and pay the minister? 14 These problems were flagged by Attorney General Noy in a paper of directions that he seems to have drawn up in late 1631/early 1632. Noy allowed that the new chapel might have a perpetual incumbent and 'all parochial rights', but only with the consent of the dean and chapter of Westminster and the vicar of St Martin's (a significant qualification). Noy noted that it was fitting that the right of presentation be appointed to some certain person (without specifying that this should be the founder). He particularly urged that the incumbent should be properly paid 'and not to be left to the willing contribution of his flock'. 15 But these matters were not entirely resolved.
While the letters patent dated 30 June 1635 that confirm Bedford's building license note that Bedford has 'erected a Building for a Church there verey competent for a 13 Alnwick Castle, Y.III/2/1, envelope 2; Duggan, 'London the ring', p. 143. A draft of the license has the earl contributing only £2000 towards the cost of the church; presumably it was conveyed that this would be inadequate (Y.III/2/4, envelope 8).
14 St Martin's parishioners in 1626 had proposed that they would pay the minister of 'this new church' (at Durham House) while still paying their dues to 'the present and future vicars of the old Church'. They presumably hoped that, as attendance at this new church on the Strand would be more convenient for 'the most parte of the parishioners Especially of noble personages and other of the better sort', the money would be easily forthcoming (TNA, SP 16/44/51). 9 parochiall Church' they make no direct comment on the questions that Noy had raised. 16 One man who was clearly unhappy with developments and these still unresolved questions would appear to have been Archbishop Laud.
Laud had reason to be highly suspicious of the new church and parish. St Martin's had been involved in a tense stand-off with the king over the appointment of its lecturer in 1627. In the following years another parish lecturer's inflammatory sermons at St Martin's had led to his brief suspension by Laud (acting as bishop of London) and the cross-examination of St Martin's churchwardens. To make matters worse, a further temporary replacement lecturer was in his turn summoned before Laud in 1631 for his sermon that had attacked bowing at the name of Jesus (a particularly controversial issue that was generating heated pamphlet exchanges between puritans and Laudians at precisely that time). 17 In this context, the Covent Garden development must have seemed sinister to Laud. The fourth earl of Bedford was not himself a zealous puritan, but he certainly associated with some more militantly godly figures, acted as patron to Cornelius Burges (who was already in trouble with the authorities in the 1630s and would be a scourge of Laudianism in the 10 early 1640s) and favoured leniency towards nonconforming ministers. 18 Not only was the puritan-connected Bedford apparently determined to control the appointment of the minister to the new church (the 1629 warrant had already implied that Bedford would control the living), but the patronage of the new church had also arisen during the 1633 trial of the puritan consortium, the Feoffees for Impropriations. It was reported that the feoffees had consciously targeted the new church of Covent Garden in their attempts to place puritan ministers in influential parishes, and that they had offered Bedford £1000 to buy the advowson. In their defence, the feoffees retorted that 'a Lord' had sent his solicitor to them, and that it was he who had proposed the deal. 19 Perhaps even more troubling than Bedford's alleged activities was the fact that 12 nobleman who apparently had the king's warrant for his development, was acting on his own. He must surely have been proceeding at least with Laud's approval, and presumably under Laud's instructions.
Covent Garden therefore would appear to represent a prominent confrontation between Laud and lay authority in religious matters that has been missed by previous historians. Laud's concern over the new church of Covent Garden may have reflected more than his concerns with the localitythere was also a principle at stake concerning lay intrusion into the powers of the church. Bedford, after all, was seeking permanent control over a new church to which he was contributing. 14 churches are, east and west, without tricks'). 26 This also provides further testimony of his intense scrutiny of the new church (and also, perhaps, of an awareness that it might serve as a model for others). Even after the costly re-orientation of the church, however, it was not consecrated, as the stand-off between Bray and Bedford remained unresolved. The result was that this striking new church, at the heart of Westminster's new fashionable development, remained for five long years without 'any settled Course' for the supply of a preaching minister, and apparently (because of its unconsecrated state) unable to house divine service. 27 It is notable that a remarkably similar stand-off and suspended consecration had occurred in precisely the same year as the completion of Covent Garden church. Here he had not only upheld the rights of the existing vicar, but had refused to yield to proposals that the inhabitants would submit a minister for his approval (or even a number of ministers for him to select from) and had insisted that he would make the appointment himself and would not 'give way to any popular nomination '. 29 The stalemate in Covent Garden was only broken in 1638, when more than a hundred inhabitants of the area petitioned the Privy Council to resolve the problem so that a preaching minister could begin to serve in the church. 30 The petition secured its The account of the hearing occupies no less than four pages of the Privy Council register. 31 Bedford argued that he had built the church and a dwelling house for the minister, and guaranteed to provide a generous income of £100 a year for the incumbent. Given this outlay, he considered it to be 'of Common Course and in all equity' that he should control the appointment to the living. Bray (doubtless primed by Laud) insisted that until Covent Garden obtained separate parochial status by act of parliament he still retained the right to appoint the minister, whose stipend Bray ultimately offered to pay in the meantime.
It was finally resolved by the king that Bray should appoint and pay the curate until an act of parliament made Covent Garden parochial (giving his 'Royall and forerunning assent' to such a future bill). Once the act was passed, though, Bedford would thereafter be granted the right to appoint and pay the minister on the grounds of 'his voluntary Bounty and devotion to the Service of God'. 32 In the meantime, Bray retained temporary control over the new church, and duly appointed two nonentities to the curacy in quick succession. 33 Nevertheless, the king's judgement was still a minor setback for Laud, who was always anxious where possible to restrict the rights of laymen to appoint ministers, and would now have a new lay-funded minister appointed by the puritan-connected Bedford, based very close to the court. In the end, 31 Ibid., pp.145-8. 32 Ibid., pp. 146-8. perhaps Charles trusted a fellow-aristocrat to make the right appointment, and his esteem for the nobility overcame Laud's fears for the church. It is also possible that, given the many extra burdens and restrictions that he had placed upon Bedford's development, Charles felt that he could not really impose any more. Of course, it was also the case that in 1638 the king was in no hurry to call a new parliament.
One final point the king had urged was that the church be consecrated as soon as possible, but it was almost another six months before this occurred. In the meantime there were a series of no less important practical matters that needed to be agreed relating to the organization of the new parish-in-waiting at Covent Garden. 19 license to build houses in Covent Garden. At the heart of the petition were the sums that it was feared that the inhabitants of the chapelry were being required to pay to cover the costs of Bedford's failure (as they saw it) to honour his obligations towards the church. Among other things, it was complained that the roof and other parts of the church had been defectively built, so that they could not be timbered and leaded properly for less than £1500. 38 But their principal complaint was that Bedford was seeking to claw back money that he had spent on the interior of the church. Thus it was objected that Bedford had built an altar, font, pews, pulpit 'and other necessaries' for the chapel but was now demanding nearly £1200 from the parishioners in payment for this. And this despite the fact that Bedford had 'freely given them to the service of God, and procured the Consecration of them'. This all added up to a sum of over £4000, charged to the inhabitants of the chapelry. The petitioners urged the king that they should not be required to pay for things that had already been given and consecrated to the church. The petitioners also sought to demonstrate their own loyalty to the crown (and, implicitly, Bedford's lack of the same) by pointedly complaining that Bedford had promised that he would erect 'A beautiful Structure' in the centre of the piazza on which he would place a statue of Charles I in brass, surrounded by a fair iron gate, which he had failed to do. 39 38 This would seem to have been true. For references to the roof being in danger of falling down, and the need to raise sums to repair it in the early 1640s, see TNA, PRO, C3/424/13, C6/125Pt1/1. They also complained that they would have to build a steeple with clock and bells for the chapel (noting scornfully that lacking a steeple and bells the chapel could hardly be called a church) and that this would cost 2000 marks a task that Bedford should have performed.

20
Not the least intriguing aspect of the petition is the glimpse that it provides of promises and assurances made by Bedford 'and his Officers' towards the builders and leasees of the development. These included not only the frame for the statue of Charles, but also an alleged promise by Bedford to pave the piazza and to enlarge the narrow passage onto the high street. The petition's claim that Bedford had proposed to build the church merely as a way of extracting from the king a license to build houses presumably reflects local knowledge of the warrant drawn up in 1629. It is certainly possible that some of the 'many inhabitants' who had accompanied Laud and Montford in making overtures to Bedford for land for a chapel of ease had been privy to subsequent negotiations and promises on Bedford's part. The reflections in the petition may also indicate the degree to which a popular 'memory' of the negotiations had already been generated, in which Bedford was understood to have made promises that had never been fulfilled. Interestingly, this sense that Bedford had reneged on earlier agreements would inform disputes in the parish right through to the Restoration period (as we will see).
It is also important to note the signatories to this comprehensive indictment of the earl. Soon afterwards it was dismissively claimed that they included 'some few gentlemen' but that the rest were mere 'Tradesmen'. 40 This is borne out by the signatures: there were women as well as men, and some only signed with a mark.
Nevertheless, despite attempts to denigrate the social status of the petitioners, these craftsmen and tradesmen were hardly simple folk, and included men such as Peter Le Huc, who worked on the scenery for court masques. 41 The poor rate records also 40 TNA, PRO, SP 16/402/75/IV. 41 Le Huc was paid £50 for repairs to the scenery and 'property' for the play 'The Royall Slave' (TNA, PRO, SO3/11 Apr. 1637). 21 demonstrate that many of these petitioners were reasonably prosperous: in the 1637-8 poor rate, of forty-two petitioners listed, half were rated at 8s 8d, and fourteen more at higher sums, with two signatories rated at an impressive 26s. 42 There was only one signatory who had been involved in developing Covent Garden property with Bedford 22 award is made 'taking into consideration these signs of speciall trust and Credit which he beareth in the Common Wealth'. Whether or not Hulbert perceived himself as defending the local 'Common Wealth' against Bedford he was clearly determined not to be overawed by his social superior, and may well have been trying to establish his own authority in the new precinct, given his previous prominence in St Martin's. 45 But does the petition therefore simply represent Hulbert's manipulation of his fellowparishioners? There is no need to see things in this fashion. Hulbert may have exploited fears over Bedford's intentions, but there seems no reason to doubt the parishioners' genuine concerns that they could be compelled to pay more than £4000 in rates to fund the shortfall in Bedford's expenditure on the church.
Whatever the precise objectives behind the petition, the petitioners seem to have expected a sympathetic hearing, knowing that the king himself had shown little reluctance in prosecuting Bedford in the courts. Indeed the petitioners tried to suggest that the king had been misled by Bedford, a man who had sought to wriggle out of his promises. The petitioners may also have hoped for Laud's support against the earlthey certainly voiced a keen (though admittedly self-interested) esteem for the rite of consecration and the inviolability of the church's furnishings.
But if these indeed were their hopes, the petitioners were sadly mistaken. The 23 Garden chapelry should meet to consider the signatures to the petition and identify how many 'of the best of the said Inhabitants who are householders' had subscribed to the petition and approved it, and how many had been 'contractors' for leases with Bedford. They were alsoremarkably --charged to compile a list of names of all those who had not subscribed to the petition. 47 The result was an extraordinary exercise in assessing the validity of the petition's claim to speak for the area's inhabitants, by listing all those who had not subscribed, arranged (significantly) in columns according to their social status. This list contains some 270 inhabitants, including three earls, five lords, nine knights and many tradesmen. 48 It is possible that Laud and Juxon were the ones expressing concern that the petition was a factious and scandalous one. But it seems most likely that it was Bedford himself who chose to respond to the accusations by focusing on the petition itself, and by questioning not just its representativeness, but also the social standing of the petitioners. The question of who precisely should be deemed to represent the opinion of the new precinct would be a major issue of contention during the next few years, but it is interesting to note the future parliamentarian hero Bedford associated with such a hostile posture towards popular petitioning.
Moreover, it is worth examining the names of those who signed the supposed 'vestry' report on the Bedford petition. Laud and Juxon wrote to the 'vestry' of the chapel of Covent Garden on the matter, but in theory no such body existed. The The petition's charges were finally dealt with at a further hearing the following May, 1639 where the result was a complete defeat for the petitioners. 55 It was concluded that the petition against Bedford was 'verie scandalous and untrue in many things', and the petitioners were berated for the injury they had done the earl in 'causelessly' petitioning against him. The petitioners were ordered immediately to fulfil their part of an earlier agreement that had allegedly been made by the parishioners with the earl of Bedford by paying the sums demanded of them. 56 Attention was particularly focused on the pews, which seem to have been the real cause of contention. The chancellor of London diocese testified that it had been agreed by the earl and the inhabitants of the chapelry before the consecration that 27 threat to the church in the past, an impertinent attack on the peerage could have prompted Laud to feel that the authorities should close ranks. After all, Laud had reasons to distrust the laity of St Martin's, whose choice of lecturers had given him some trouble in the recent past. 59 It also seems likely that Laud had been lobbied intensively by Bedford in this matter. Clarendon's later report that Bedford 'frequently visited and dined' with Laud has often been noted by historians, with the implication that the two enjoyed amicable relations. 60 The sustained five-year standoff between Bedford and Laud's chaplain is difficult to reconcile with any suggestion that the earl and archbishop had enjoyed a close friendship before 1638. It may be true, however, that in the late 1630s Bedford regularly visited the archbishop to solicit his support over the petition, to provide much-needed reassurance over the Covent Garden project, and presumably to depict his enemies in the precinct as dangerous subversives. The case was clearly not an easy one, though, and Juxon's and Laud's judgement went through no less than four drafts, rejecting the charges of the 'anti-Bedford' petitioners, but also removing a generous clause that stated that in all the disputed financial matters 'Wee hold it most just and fit to leave the said earl at liberty to doe in these particulars as shall seeme good to his Lordship'. 61 59 See above, p. 00. 60 Earl of Clarendon, The history of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, ed. W.
Macray (6 vols., Oxford, 1881), I, pp. 308-9; Duggan, 'London the ring', p. 149. It should be noted that Laud was strikingly hostile towards the earl in 1641, seeing Bedford's death just before the royal assent was given to the bill of attainder against the earl of Strafford as God's judgement upon him as 'one of the main plotters of Strafford's death ... [who had] resolved to have his blood' (Laud, Works, III, p. 443).

28
The judgement of Laud and Juxon, however, was not an end to strife in Covent Garden. This partly reflected the many ambiguities associated with the creation of a chapelry as a sort of parish-in-waiting until an act of parliament could formally establish a new parish. It was soon objected that the creation of the chapelry had essentially been the work of an unrepresentative minority. A lawyer acting for St Martin's complained to the Privy Council in 1640 that the inhabitants of St Martin's and Covent Garden who had agreed and subscribed to the 'Articles of agreement' the day before the consecration 'were but few in respect of those who were absent', and that these articles agreed 'in the name of the residew' were invalid. 62 The fluctuating membership of St Paul's so-called 'vestry' could also have prompted concerns over its representativeness, and the dominant role being played by Bedford's clients. It is clear that not everyone in the locality was prepared to accept this ad hoc chapelry government. Indeed, some went so far as to have their own independent meetings and to resist the authority of the chapelry officers. It was complained in 1640 that a faction in the parish 'doe also without authority summon and hold unlawfull meetings resiste the officers in the church, & clyme over pewes'. It is particularly notable that these plaintiffs in 1640 identified this resistance with the 'tradesmen' who had been involved in the earlier petition against Bedford. 63 Once again the issue of church seating particularly inflamed passions. It was complained that many of the pews had not been allocated because of 'the dissension 62 TNA, PRO, PC2/52, p. 638. The Privy Council rejected this objection because of 'the severall sufficient warnings given by authority from the lord Bishop of the Diocess, to the whole Parish, to bee there present'. 63 TNA, PRO, SP16/458/15 (a copy of which is in BL, Harl. MS 1831 fos. 35v-36r). of the inhabitants'. 64 Not only were many parishioners still unwilling to pay, but it was complained in 1640 that some of them 'did violently intrude and seate themselves in Pewes in the said Chappell without being placed there orderly by those Authorized in that behalfe'. 65 Again, the authority of chapelry officials was being denied. Other inhabitants seem to have simply decided to give up on the issue, returning to St Martin's church where they had retained their pews, and prompting an order from Laud and Juxon that they should 'bee not permitted to Continue their Pewes any longer theare but to repayre to the said Chappell'. 66 Ultimately, the issue of pewing may not have been simply a financial one. It was the allocation of pews that was just as important. In a new locality, church seating was one of the quickest ways of displaying, and in a sense creating, the new local hierarchy. 67  March because of their non-payment of the rate claimed that they were ready to pay, but were unhappy about rating technicalities, arguing either that they had been overrated or that they were only temporary residents: TNA, PRO, PC2/51 p. 342.  The jurisdictional and financial issues here are clear, but this was not simply a quarrel between the new chapelry and the old parish. Rather, these disputes also reflected the power struggles within the new chapelry. It is striking, for example, that the petition to the king appealing for the release of the two Covent Garden officials was signed only by the two officials themselves and Anthony Wither 'in the name of the inhabitants in Covent Garden' but, a contemporary copy icily adds, 'without their consents'. An anti-Bedford thread ran through these disputes as well. Not only were Bedford associates particularly targeted, and even subjected to arrest, but it seems The formal creation of a new parish by act of parliament was an obvious way of resolving some of these difficulties, and with the calling of the Long Parliament this finally became a possibility. But even here there were two separate bids for parochial status. Bedford himself seems to have devised a draft bill by December 1640. 76 Yet other inhabitants seem to have sent a very different petition to parliament around the same time for Covent Garden to be made into a parish. This petition seems to have been partially couched in terms antagonistic to the earls of Bedford.
According to one account, the petitioners argued that Bedford had failed to build a proper church, and they complained of the unfair rates levied for pews. 77 The creation of a parish of Covent Garden was clearly hoped to be the means by which opponents of Bedford would be empowered in local affairs, freed from the domination of one individual and his clients. It was later claimed by the petitioners that they wished Covent Garden to be a parish so that it could enjoy 'parochial privileges and liberties for the good of the inhabitants'. This bid for parochial status would seem to have been the work of an alternative, would-be body of parish governors, who had hitherto is also signed by the familiar Bedford names Wither and Carter as well as four other  77 This was claimed by one of the petition organizers, William Clifton, but was denied in a submission to chancery by his colleagues, who insisted that the petition was not directed against the earl: TNA, PRO, C3/424/13. played only a limited role in parish affairs and had been notably absent from Bedford's circle and its activities. They included three signatories of the anti-Bedford petition. It is equally striking that none of Bedford's supporters, and none of those who signed the petition for the release of Covent Garden officials in 1641, were involved were involved in this alternative bid for parochial status. 78 The Long Parliament was thus presented in early 1641 with two different bills for making the Covent Garden chapelry parochial. After one of the bills had been read the other bill was read a few weeks later, with the explanation that the earlier bill 'was mistaken' (although as it transpired neither bill reached a third reading). 79 Such conflicting petitions encapsulate just how divided and dysfunctional the would-be parish was. 78 The petition itself does not appear to survive. Of the eight men reportedly involved in it, three of them had signed the anti-Bedford petition (Henry Coveney, William Clifton and John Haulton) while another three had been members of the earlier 'vestry' commissioned to levy a rate (John Honor, Thomas Constable and George Norfolk). The latter three, while they had not signed the anti-Bedford petition, had not signed the 'vestry' report on the petition either, or the petitions in favour of the imprisoned chapelry officials. Honor and Constable had allegedly at one point been chosen as chapelwardens but prevented from taking up their positions. Along with Coveney, they had also been among the eight chapelry inhabitants who signed the

35
The lack of surviving parochial records means that the picture remains frustratingly incomplete in some of its details, yet it is clear that clashes between Bedford and his clients on the one hand, and opposing groups within Covent Garden on the other, became entrenched in the later 1630s and stretched well into the 1640s.
In the event, Covent Garden had to wait for its final establishment as a separate parish until 1646, when parliament had finished with its other business of winning the civil war. By then, the introduction of the presbyterian system meant that some of the anomalies of Covent Garden's government were resolved. 80 And interestingly, the thirty-four 'governors' established to run the parish in 1646 included not only the new earl of Bedford (the only nobleman listed), but also men who had featured on both sides of the earlier disputes, although no one described as below the rank of 'gentleman'. 81 Nevertheless, power struggles and alleged social divisions among prominent parishioners continued to dog the new parish well into the 1650s. 82 Divisions emerged again at the Restoration, when an act of parliament had to be secured to confirm the parochial status established by the 1646 ordinance. A petition from 'the inhabitants' of St Paul Covent Garden to the House of Lords pleaded that the ordinance should not be confirmed. Signed by some fifty-nine inhabitants (some of whom signed with a mark, and none of whom were gentry) the petition claimed that the ordinance had been procured in 1646 'by some perticular persons', and that it was now being presented to parliament by ' The Earle of Bedford being bound to Endowe it'. 83 The story of how an unrepresentative clique had created the parish, and the earl of Bedford had reneged on his obligations to pay for it, had clearly become well established in the local popular memory.

III
The conflicts in Covent Garden point to a number of broader conclusions about the workings of religious patronage and local communities and the intersection of local and national politics in this period.
One recurring issue in the creation of the new parish was the role played by the earl of Bedford as its patron. Bedford was seeking to build his own power base in the locality, with his clients, trusted contractors and relatives effectively running the precinct, while he himself controlled the living, appointing and paying the minister of his choice. Here was the aristocratic dominance of a parish of the sort that we associate more with provincial parishes and the local manor houseyet St Paul Covent Garden was in the heart of the metropolis. But if Bedford was indeed seeking to create his own parish, linked to his private London townhouse, he was also a commercial developer, and this provides an important dimension to the quarrels. The traditional rhetoric surrounding donations to church fabric emphasized the pious and 83 HLRO, Main Papers 13 Dec. 1660, item 9. 37 communal intentions of the donor. 84 Within the locality, the patron of an entirely new church could thus expect honour and prestige in return for his generosity. Bedford perhaps wanted honour among the godly and prestige for architectural innovation from the court. But for the inhabitants themselves, Bedford gradually appeared more in the guise of a developer rather than a charitable donor, seeking to claw back the maximum cash from his own leasees and their tenants for his initial outlay. Informal ties of honour, respect and reciprocity may have been subtly undermined. The outraged response of some inhabitants may reflect partly a confusion of expectations (and a local 'memory' of what Bedford had promised to do) but also the peculiarity of the project. In London, when a church was refurbished or rebuilt, this was usually envisaged as a community project, where many of the furnishings and ornaments of the church were provided by parishioners as charitable contributions. 85 Similarly, rents from pews, which at Covent Garden went directly to the earl of Bedford, were more usually collected for the benefit of the parish (indeed, in the nearby Broadway chapel the pew rents were used to help pay for the minister). 86 But the perception seems to have grown that this was Bedford's parish and Bedford's church, with rates collected by Bedford's men, with the result that local inhabitants seem to have been somewhat detached, and unwilling to donate towards church furnishings.
The struggles in Covent Garden may also reflect broader social tensions. This was an area with unusually high numbers of aristocratic and gentry residents, but their 84 I. Archer, 'The arts and acts of memorialization in early modern London' in J. F. 38 social status was not necessarily reflected in the power and influence that they wielded in the locality. Indeed, in St Martin's parish, out of which Covent Garden was carved, by the 1630s gentlemen were becoming less prominent on the parish vestry, which largely consisted of wealthy members from the service sector. In parish society there were alternative hierarchies of local status, office-holding, and length of residence that ran alongside the more universally recognised gradations of social status. 87 By contrast, it is notable that in the response to the anti-Bedford petition, and in the complaints of the imprisoned Covent Garden officials in 1641, the opponents of Bedford's agents in the chapelry are persistently and pejoratively identified as 'tradesmen'. 88 This injected an air of social exclusivity into the running of the wouldbe parish which was notably different to that which had pertained in the mother parish of St Martin's. In creating his new parish, Bedford (an erstwhile St Martin's parishioner) was effectively constructing a new local hierarchy linked to his own prominence, overseeing the symbolic expression of that hierarchy through his allocation of pews, and having parish business run via his clients on the 'vestry'.
There was nothing new in a single aristocrat wielding influence in the area: the Cecils had been an important force in St Martin's in the Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. But they were never the sole influence in the parish, and theirs was a control that was exercised with a velvet glove through an extensive and socially diverse network of local patronage, their local authority also deriving from their position as 87 Merritt,Social World,pp. 124,H.R. French,'Social status,localism  The creation of a new parish also raised in awkward form the question of who should be taken to speak for and embody the local community, not the least because the vestry and churchwardens emerged without any obvious consultation with the inhabitants. A new parish could not have 'ancients of the parish' of the sort whose authority was invoked in the mother parish of St Martin's. 90 There was no corpus of custom and tradition to call upon, no gradually evolved hierarchy of prestige deriving from office-holding, service and local munificence. Petitions were normally respected as expressions of communal opinion, but the question of how far they were truly representative of opinion constantly recurred in the Covent Garden disputes. 91 Time and again, we meet with complaints that different sides were claiming to speak for the 89 Merritt, Social world, pp. 74-6, 113-21; J. Merritt, 'The Cecils and Westminster