The Restoration was now an accomplished fact, and the Post Office passed into the hands of Col. Henry Bishop of Henfield, Sussex, to whom was granted the farm of the office for a period of seven years, dating from the 25th June 1660, at an annual rental of £21,500. Bishop was the third son of Sir Thomas Bisshopp, Knight, of Henfield. The Bisshopps were formerly a Yorkshire family, some of whom served under Lord Wharton in his proceedings against the Scotch in a previous age. Henry Bishop, the Postmaster-General, was married to Lady Elizabeth Plumley or Plumleigh, a widow who, in religion, was a papist. Before proceeding to deal with Bishop's work in the Post Office, we may here mention, as a matter of interest personal to the individual, that in the impropriator's chancel of the church of Henfield is a mural monument to his memory, setting forth that he died in 1691, at the age of eighty.
It is not apparent upon what grounds Bishop obtained the farm, or whether he had performed any services entitling him to such an appointment. Under his indenture he was required to pay one quarter's rent in advance, namely, £5375, to bear all the expense of transmitting Government letters, and to carry, free, single letters from members of Parliament. He was required "to give in a true catalogue of all postmasters employed by him, and dismiss those excepted against by a Secretary of State, to whom all alterations in postage, or erection of post stages, were to be submitted." He was, however, to be granted certain allowances in case of plague, civil war, etc., which might affect the revenue of his farm.
In connection with Bishop's appointment, there is a curious circumstance related in a State paper of September 1667. The document, although written under the initials "A.B.," is evidently the production of Clement Oxenbridge, who, it will be remembered, was one of the "First Undertakers for the reduction of postage," and who was the means of Prideaux's giving up the Post Office. Indeed the paper is indorsed "Mr. Oxenbridge." It reads as follows:—
"Statement of A.B.: That he was in youth a servant of the Princess Royal, and was also allied to a grandee under the late powers; that in 1652 he got Prideaux put out of the Post Office, by reducing the price of letters from 6d. to 3d., and bringing in a threefold weekly postage; that, to recompense him for £5036, 8s. spent therein, he was to have a weekly payment from the post office; and he took the office in 1660 in Bishop's name, and settled a foreign correspondence, but, being dissatisfied with Bishop, had the office transferred to his Cousin O'Neale" (O'Neale was successor to Bishop) "on condition of continuing him £800 a year therefrom, but this has not been done," etc.
Whether Oxenbridge was able to exercise the interest here pretended is not clear. He was employed in the Post Office under Bishop for a time, but, as will be seen hereafter, there is little doubt he was turned out of it.
The return of the king from exile was signalised by a general scramble for offices, the king and his ministers being inundated with petitions for all kinds of places. While the king came in upon a promise of general pardon, his return was followed by measures of great severity; and it is perhaps not far from the truth to attribute much of what took place to the clamour of the Royalists, whose claims to place could not be satisfied without turning other men out. In order to clear the way, it would obviously be necessary to proceed against the then holders upon some plea or other. The petitions are founded on every variety of alleged service or suffering, from the most trivial to the most important. For example, one suitor begs for the place of Groom of the Great Chamber to the King or the Dukes of York or Gloucester, stating that he "had been clerk of the chapel to the late king, and served His Majesty, when prince, as keeper of his balloons and paumes, and of tennis shoes and ankle socks." An aged widow, named Elizabeth Cary, begs a place as page for her son, on the ground that she had suffered greatly for her loyalty. She had had her back broken at Henley-on-Thames, and a gibbet was erected to take away her life. She was imprisoned at Windsor Castle, Newgate, Bridewell, the Bishop of London's house, and lastly in the Mews, at the time of the late king's martyrdom, "for peculiar service in carrying his gracious proclamations and declarations from Oxford to London, and only escaped with her life by flying into her own country." Many petitions were received for places in the Post Office. The plaint of one applicant is, that "his father's property was destroyed by Lord Fairfax at the siege of Leeds." In another case it is set forth that the petitioner "should have succeeded his father, but was put by for taking arms for the late king." A suppliant in the West says, that he "has been a constant sufferer from the tyranny of His Majesty's enemies. Would not mention his sufferings, in the joy of the Restoration, but for his wife and children, those patient partakers of all his troubles. Was the first man in Exeter to be taken up and imprisoned in all occasions during the late rebellion," etc. A former postmaster of Lichfield says, that "he suffered much loss by pulling down of his house and plunder of his goods, and was displaced by the then Parliament." The prayer of Thomas Challoner, postmaster of Stone, is based on the fact that he is brother to Richard Challoner, martyred for his loyalty before the Royal Exchange in 1643, and has often been plundered, etc. Thomas Taylor, of Tadcaster, solicits the postmastership of that place: urging his claim upon the fact that his ancestors had served since Queen Elizabeth's time; that his father, Thomas Taylor, had been seized and executed by Lord Fairfax for carrying an express to Prince Rupert, when York was besieged, to hasten to its relief; and that his family had been kept out of the place ever since. A former postmaster of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Thomas Swan, claims restoration to the place of postmaster because the "pretenders who oppose him have not the least interest"; that his family had been loyal almost to their extirpation and banishment from the town; and that £674, 13s. is still due to his late father as postmaster, Burlamachi not having allowed him to pay himself out of the letter office, etc. These are specimens of the memorials sent in immediately after the Restoration, and which the new powers were called upon to satisfy.
The working staff of the Post Office in London at the period of the Restoration seems to have been a very mixed company. A number of them had been continued from the time of the Commonwealth; some had been brought in by Bishop; and the system of intercepting and opening letters, for the discovery of sedition, so largely practised during the Commonwealth, being still carried on, there was a great outcry against these officers who were not regarded as staunch Royalists. Bishop himself was distrusted. In December 1660, the postmaster of Newbury complains that many members of the Post Office are ill-affected, and "that Major Wildman, and Thompson and Oxenbridge, Anabaptists, put in and out whom they please." In the autumn of 1661, an account is given of the condition of the Post Office. Therein it is stated, that "it is managed by those who were active for Cromwell and the late Government: first, Major Wildman, a subtle leveller and anti-monarchy man; second, Oxenbridge, a confidant of Cromwell and betrayer of many of the King's party; third, Dorislaus, the son of the man who pleaded for the king's death at his trial; and, fourth, Vanderhuyden, agent of Nieuport, the Dutch Ambassador to Cromwell, now treating, underhand, to settle the postage by way of Amsterdam. The letter officers are chiefly disloyal: Col. Bishop himself and the office are under Major Wildman's control." The writer of this statement urges that the office should be put under fresh management. Shortly after this time, as would appear, there had been a clearing-out of several of the persons objected to; for in "a perfect list of all the officers, clerks, and others employed in and about the Post Office in London by Henry Bisshopp, Esq., His Majesty's farmer of the said office," the principal names mentioned above do not appear. The staff and constitution of the office, as exhibited by this paper, are as follows:—