Bristol

When Elizabeth succeeded, the government of Bristol was vested in the mayor, six aldermen, a recorder, two sheriffs, a number of minor officials, and 43 common councilmen. By a charter of 1581 the number of aldermen was increased to 12. MPs were chosen by the mayor, aldermen, common councilmen, 40s. freeholders and principal merchants. The return was made by the sheriffs. MPs were supposed to receive 2s. a day wages, and £1 a session expenses, increased in 1566 to 3s.4d. a day plus £12 expenses, and in 1571 to 4s. a day with £18 12s. expenses. But as usual the actual amounts shown in the city’s accounts are difficult to reconcile with the scale. The city audits show payments of £10 12s. to Walshe in 1559 and £17 10s. to Carr; £2 to Walshe in 1563, £18 5s. to Carr. No doubt there were extra items to be charged ‘as appeareth by his [Carr’s] bill of particulars’. Whether because of generous payments to MPs or for another reason, such as its wide franchise or general prosperity, Bristol remained free from outside interference in its elections, despite a succession of high stewards of the eminence of the 1st Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Burghley and the Earl of Essex.

The city’s first seat, in this period, always went to the recorder, the second to a merchant and/or borough official, except that, after Walshe had been made a judge in 1563 (Bristol gave him some wine ‘at his promotion’) a second merchant was returned. Both these 1566 MPs were merchant venturers, and they successfully promoted a bill restricting the city’s foreign trade to members of that company. The mayor and three aldermen wrote to Leicester on 25 Mar. 1571 about the ‘sinister dealing’ of these two MPs and there was ‘great variance’ over the choice of MPs at the next election. In the outcome the merchant venturers were defeated, the recorder took with him to Parliament a Member who was not of the company, and the Act was repealed.

A minor mystery attaches to the 1597 election. In some of the earlier lists a Bristol merchant named Thomas James is given as the second Member, but there can be no doubt that the final choice was William Ellys. The ‘Mr. Doctor James’ on the committee of a bill for Bristol in the 1597 Parliament was Francis James, MP for Corfe Castle.6Bristol AO, mayor’s audits; A. B. Beaven, Bristol Lists; Weinbaum, Charters, 38-41; J. Latimer, 16th Cent. Bristol, 25, 37, 114; Bristol Annals, 12, 46, 56; PRO, Baskerville cal. Dudley pprs. bk. 4, I. 224; Bristol Charters, (Bristol Rec. Soc. xii); W. Barret, Bristol, 150-63; S. Seyer, Bristol Mems. 243; Bristol Merchant Venturers Recs. (Bristol Rec. Soc. xvii).