Aylesbury

Throughout Elizabeth’s reign the Pakington family were lords of Aylesbury. Although the town was incorporated in 1554, there is no evidence that the corporation challenged Pakington control over elections in this period. The original returns testify to the completeness of that control. In 1572, when the borough was under the lordship of Dame Dorothy Pakington, widow of Sir Thomas Pakington, the return reads: ... know ye, me, the said Dame Dorothy Pakington to have chosen ... my trusty and well beloved Thomas Lichfield and George Burden, esquires, to be my burgesses of my said town of Aylesbury.The return for 1597 was made between the sheriff on the one hand and Sir John Pakington, lord of the borough, and the commonalty of the same, on the other.

Pakington connexions can be discerned behind the majority of the returns for Aylesbury. Thomas Lichfield (1571, 1572) was Sir Thomas Pakington’s son-in-law, while Thomas Tasburgh (1584, 1586, 1597) was his widow’s second husband. (Sir) Thomas West II (1593) was related by marriage to Tasburgh. There were close ties between the Pakington family and the Smythes. Thomas Smythe I, the customer of London, had been one of Aylesbury’s first MPs in 1554, and two of his sons were among its Elizabethan Members: John Smythe I (1584) and Thomas Smythe II (1597). Thomas Colshill (1563), besides being a customs official and colleague of Smythe, was also a personal acquaintance of the Pakingtons. The Sackville and Scott families also seem to have been part of this close-knit circle. Thomas Sackville (1563) was related to the Smythes, and Thomas Scott (1586) was related by marriage to both the Sackvilles and the Smythes. George Burden (1572) had a close association with Roger Alford, a friend of Sir Thomas Pakington, and as the return shows, was personally known to his widow. The 1589 MPs, Thomas Pigott II and Henry Fleetwood, were Buckinghamshire country gentlemen and neighbours of the Pakingtons.

It is of interest that the two extant returns which do not mention the lords of the manor, those of 1559 and 1601, relate to the two Parliaments in which Pakington influence is not immediately obvious. Arthur Porter (1559) and his son-in-law Edward Oldsworth, who came in at a by-election in February 1559, were both Gloucestershire country gentlemen who had no known connexions with either Aylesbury or the Pakingtons. Richard More II (1601) was a Middle Temple lawyer, who may have had a distant marriage connexion with the Pakingtons. Thomas Crawley (1559) and John Lyly (1593 and 1601) were both courtiers: court connexions with the Pakingtons may explain their returns for Aylesbury. No explanation has been found for Edmund Dockwra’s return in 1571.5R. Gibbs, Aylesbury; C219/28, 33.