Welsh Journals

CRANFIELD: POLITICS AND PROFITS UNDER THE EARLY STUARTS. The Career of Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex. By Menna Prestwich. Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1966. Pp. xx, 623. 84s. In 1958 Mrs. Prestwich, who had by then been working for a decade upon a biography of Lionel Cranfield, was confronted with the publica- tion of R. H. Tawney's Business and Politics under James I, ominously sub-titled 'Lionel Cranfield as Merchant and Minister'. Having asked herself whether it was now worthwhile to continue in this trodden path, she courageously decided to go on; and this book, appearing almost a further decade later, abundantly justifies her decision. Except on the general commercial background of the early seventeenth century and upon the detailed organisation of Cranfield's export business, Mrs. Prestwich covers every aspect of the subject much more fully than her predecessor-her book is twice as long as his-and also devotes a sub- stantial section to the last twenty years of Cranfield's life, which Tawney virtually ignored. But length and detail are not themselves enough to commend or to justify. How does Mrs. Prestwich's interpretation differ from Tawney's? What is her contribution to our understanding of the reign of James I? Both authors agree on certain basic generalizations and inferences. Both consider that the financial problems of the Crown could have been solved by more intelligent policies and better administration under James, that the final years of his reign saw the Stuart monarchy slip uncontrollably towards catastrophe, that Cranfield's inability to stop its descent was in part a consequence of his failure to understand the workings of Jacobean politics, and that this failure was a disaster for the Crown. Beyond this, there are significant differences of emphasis, calculation and assessment in the two works. Where Tawney concluded, with some doubts and hesitations, that Cranfield had as Lord Treasurer gone far towards making the monarchy solvent before he was brought down in 1624, Mrs. Prestwich argues pretty conclusively that he was nothing like so successful in dealing with the general problem of national finances as he had been earlier in reducing the extravagances of particular spending departments. Nor does she absolve him from all blame for his failure to right the financial balance or for the political attacks upon him. His own profits as Treasurer were huge and he was more tolerant than was wise of the gains made by certain courtiers: thus the accusations of corruption at his impeachment, while probably false, could acquire some colour. The impeachment itself, while certainly the work of factious courtiers clustered around Buckingham and Prince Charles, was part of a process encouraged by Cranfield during the parliamentary attack on Bacon. Indeed, as Mrs. Prestwich skilfully shows, one of the major weaknesses of Jacobean government was the propensity