We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
An Anatomy of the London Agent.
- Authors
Ludolph, Patrick
- Abstract
This article considers the London agent through the careers of Gilbert Mabbott and, to a lesser extent, William Raylton. The London agent was a commonplace in early modern political culture, but the phenomenon is rarely addressed in the historiography. I argue for the importance of the agent to early modern English history in general, but I also consider Mabbott's situation in particular. Because of the civil wars, Mabbott was able to rise beyond his social station as a scrivener and freed himself from the bonds of the patron-client relationship. This article seeks to define some of the roles played by agents in the early modern period by looking at Mabbott's and Raylton's work for their major employers: Thomas Wentworth, Hull, royalist delinquents and their children, various parliamentary armies, and Oliver Cromwell. It ends by looking at the wealth that Mabbott acquired through his work, both before and after the Restoration, as demonstrative of how an agent's power could yield impressive rewards when freed of social constraints.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; CLERKS; LOBBYING; MABBOTT, Gilbert; RAYLTON, William; CLARKE, William; CROMWELL, Oliver, 1599-1658; ENGLAND &; Wales. Army. New Model Army; BRITISH politics &; government, 1603-1714
- Publication
Parliamentary History, 2014, Vol 33, Issue 2, p277
- ISSN
0264-2824
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1750-0206.12098