Marlborough

Marlborough had been built on the north bank of the river Kennet, within a large royal estate on the downs of north-east Wiltshire and at the junction of two important routes, from Bath to London and from Cirencester to Salisbury and on to the south coast. A market centre for the surrounding countryside, much of the town’s trade came by way of Bristol and Southampton. Yet even though Marlborough ranked third in size among the urban communities of Wiltshire, after Salisbury and Wilton (with a taxable population in 1377 of nearly 550), the town was not particularly wealthy, owing to a decline in the local cloth industry as its focus shifted to Salisbury and the south-west. Even so, in 1436 it was expected to advance £20 (a sum slightly more than its annual fee farm) towards a loan to the Crown for the equipment of an army to be sent to Calais, and it was the only place in the county, besides Salisbury, required to contribute.1 VCH Wilts. iv. 312; xii. 203, 208-9; Wilts. Arch. Mag. lxxxv. 70-79; E179/196/44; PPC, iv. 321. Marlborough castle, formerly often used as a royal residence, was beginning to fall into decay by the late fourteenth century, and an inquiry of 1403 heard reports of substantial deterioration in recent years.2 CIMisc. v. 284; vii. 236. This may well have had a deleterious effect on the local economy.

As forming part of the royal demesne, the borough was customarily granted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the queen as part of her dower. After the death of Queen Philippa in 1369, however, there was a change of practice: for a while the lordship of Marlborough pertained to successive constables of the castle, who were made responsible for the borough and the part of the manor known as ‘the barton’ which lay outside it. In 1399 Sir Walter Hungerford† was awarded custody of the castle by Henry IV, only for the King to rescind this grant in 1403 by transferring it to his own youngest son, Humphrey, later duke of Gloucester. In 1415 the latter was allowed to enfeoff Bishop Beaufort and others of the castle, town and lordship, to which by that date had also been added certain of the lands in the vicinity which Hungerford had previously held, including the nearby forest of Savernake.3 CPR, 1399-1401, p. 62; 1401-5, pp. 320-1; 1413-16, p. 338. Following Duke Humphrey’s death in 1447 Marlborough was granted along with the forest and other royal demesnes to Margaret of Anjou. Her income from the borough – its farm, set at £18 p.a., together with court perquisites ranging from between £3 and £5 a year – formed just a small part of the annual revenues from the estate as a whole, which amounted in the years from 1447 to 1450 to between £122 and £178.4 CPR, 1446-52, p. 559; SC6/1055/16-19. Early in Edward IV’s reign these Wiltshire demesnes were placed under a receiver and then let out to farm, before becoming part of the dower estates of his own queen.5 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 8, 11, 430, 480-2; CFR, xx. 11, 15, 115-16; SC6/1094/1.

By royal charter the borough enjoyed many liberties and possessed some institutions of its own, including a guild merchant which dated from 1163, a twice-weekly market, an annual eight-day fair and exemption from tolls (all granted in 1204), and two more fairs licensed subsequently. A further privilege of a general exemption from murage and quayage was conceded in 1408. Henry V confirmed all earlier charters to the mayor and burgesses, and in May 1425 Henry VI’s council followed suit.6 VCH Wilts. xii. 210-11; CPR, 1413-16, p. 185; 1422-9, pp. 285-6; Wilts. Hist. Centre, Marlborough bor. recs. G22/1/1-3. Little is known about Marlborough’s internal administration, save that the borough was ruled by a mayor, assisted by two bailiffs. There were also two coroners, whose election was arranged by the sheriff of Wiltshire, but this was a haphazard affair: orders for the replacement of coroners whose tenure was terminated by the death of Henry IV in March 1413 were not issued until November 1414, and those after Henry V’s death in 1422 were delayed by five years.7 VCH Wilts. xii. 212; CCR, 1413-19, p. 153; 1422-9, p. 286.

The names of Marlborough’s MPs are known for only roughly two out of every three of the Parliaments summoned before 1386, and no more than 11 of the 21 summoned between then and 1411. Before this date there were several occasions when the borough was called upon to elect representatives but failed to do so. Yet, for reasons which may only be surmised, this state of affairs changed decisively from the very start of Henry V’s reign (during which there remain gaps for only two Parliaments, those of October 1416 and 1419),8 For Oct. 1416 no returns survive for county or boroughs; for 1419 the schedule recording returns for the boroughs has been torn: C219/12/3. and under Henry VI returns for Marlborough are missing only when none survive for the county and its other boroughs (that is, for the Parliaments of 1439, 1445 and 1460). It looks very likely that Marlborough was represented without break from 1413 to 1461. After the electoral statute of 1406 returns for the Wiltshire boroughs were made on schedules attached to the shire indentures. No separate indentures of election for the boroughs exist until early in 1449 (although, even so, only the one for Wootton Bassett survives). For the Parliament of 1453 separate indentures for each of the 16 boroughs were forwarded to Chancery by the sheriff, Edmund Stradling, that for Marlborough being made between him and the mayor, Richard Mermyn, together with an unspecified number of unnamed burgesses. It simply stated that Hardegrave and Ady had been elected. The damaged indenture for the next Parliament, in 1455, is even less informative, with the name of one of the MPs now being partly illegible.9 C219/15/6; 16/2, 3.

Depending on the identity of that particular MP, the borough elected as many as 28 or 29 individuals to the 19 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign for which returns survive. Three-quarters (20 or 21) of them apparently only ever sat for Marlborough once, and it is possible that in as many as six Parliaments of the reign the borough was represented entirely by novices.10 In 1427, 1433, 1442, 1453, 1455 and 1459. Among those of the group most often chosen were Combe, Furbour and Woodford, who were each elected three times in our period, while Newman, Gower and Bird, whose first elections had all taken place before 1422, notched up three, five and eight Parliaments respectively. Clearly Bird, regularly returned between 1402 and 1437, was the most popular candidate. Continuity in the borough’s representation was also manifested by five re-elections in Henry V’s reign, when the same man was preferred for consecutive Parliaments, culminating in Gower’s return to four Parliaments in a row from 1420 to 1422, and the repeated elections of Furbour in 1432 and Bird in 1437. Two men with previous experience of the Commons represented Marlborough in no fewer than seven out of the 19 Parliaments of our period, and in seven more one of the Members was experienced in this way. It is worth noting, however, that in at least eight instances from 1421 onwards this experience had been gained by representing a different Wiltshire borough.11 John Giles (1421), Collingbourne, Erle, Gatcombe, Howton, Sturmy, Walrond and Wylly. In addition, if Thomas Brown II was the man elected in 1449 (Nov.) then he had previously sat for Dover and as a shire-knight for Kent. The fact that on three occasions one of the MPs had sat in the immediately preceding Parliament for a different constituency, also provided continuity in the borough’s representation.

Many of those elected for Marlborough were clearly eager to have a seat in the Commons, irrespective of the constituency they would nominally serve. No fewer than 12 of the group were also returned for other boroughs in Wiltshire;12 Collingbourne, Combe, Erle, Furbour, Gatcombe, Howton, Morgan, Pole, Selwood, Sturmy, Walrond and Wylly. and in addition two of this dozen (Pole and Walrond) went on to sit for Shaftesbury in Dorset. Furthermore, Walrond later won election to two Parliaments as a knight of the shire for Berkshire, and Vaughan was to do the same in two of the Parliaments of the 1470s as a shire-knight for Cornwall. Individuals such as these came to know the Commons well, with Howton and Walrond siting in at least five Parliaments and Pole in six. It should also be noted that Wotton’s familiarity with parliamentary procedure grew over the years through his service as proxy for the abbot of Malmesbury on at least five occasions (including in 1422 when he also sat in the Commons for Marlborough).

Looking back at the 12 Parliaments for which Marlborough’s returns survive in the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V, it is clear that the representation of the borough had then been dominated by men residing in the locality, for only two of the 24 documented seats were taken by outsiders: Laurence Fitton† from Cheshire, a servant of the bishop of Salisbury (in May 1421), and John Giles*, the clerk of the peace in Wiltshire (in December the same year).13 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 705-8. This characteristic of Marlborough’s representation essentially continued well into Henry VI’s reign, until the King attained his majority, for when it came to elections to the 11 Parliaments between 1422 and 1437 candidates coming from the immediate locality were evidently still preferred, with perhaps 18 of the 22 seats being taken by those who lived in or close by the town.14 The residents were Bird, Cook, Furbour, Gower, Keche, Newman, Selwood and Woodford. Although he lived elsewhere in the county Wotton held the ‘barton’; Collingbourne’s family owned property in the town; and Gatcombe’s service to Sir William Sturmy strongly suggests residence in the locality. They included Collingbourne, whose father had represented Marlborough in the Lower House, and Bird and Cook, who may also have been sons of earlier MPs for this borough. Local men predominated in the Parliaments of 1426, 1427, 1429, 1431, 1432, 1435 and 1437. Yet this is not to say that they were all burgesses-proper, although it is difficult to find out how many of them fitted into this category. Marlborough’s officials are poorly documented, and only three of the MPs sitting before 1437 are known to have been actively engaged in borough administration: Keche, who had been mayor before his election in 1425, Cook, the mayor of 1425-6 who was elected during his term, and Furbour, who was under bailiff by February 1431 (when his second Parliament was in progress).

Three of the remaining four seats in the period 1422-37 were taken by men who although they came from elsewhere in Wiltshire were probably well known to the burgesses: Sturmy (of Axford), Erle (of Burbage and Wolf Hall) and Combe (of Amesbury). Only one complete outsider was returned: he, Joce (returned in 1433), was a lawyer from Gray’s Inn, who, probably a native of Gloucestershire (where he was later a j.p. of the quorum), seems to have usually lived in Southwark. Otherwise, the MPs elected before 1442 may for the most part be placed in the categories of professional administrators, lawyers and minor gentry possessed of land within a few miles of Marlborough. Most prominent in the group loosely classed as administrators was Bird, for over 33 years the steward, receiver and bailiff of the Wiltshire estates belonging to Henry IV’s queen, Joan of Navarre, and as such earning fees of as much as £10 p.a. Furbour was bailiff of the liberties of St. Swithin’s priory, Winchester, and of the hundred of Kinwardstone (which pertained to the earl of Stafford), and Woodford, briefly bailiff of Queen Joan’s liberties in Wiltshire before he sat in Parliament, was later to be employed as deputy receiver of the earl’s estates in the county. Besides the carpet-bagger Joce, the lawyers included Newman and Wotton (both of them active as attorneys at the Wiltshire assizes and in the central court of common pleas), and Collingbourne, who had been educated at Winchester College. As members of the gentry deriving annual incomes from their lands in Wiltshire thought to exceed £40, Wotton and Erle were later fined for refusing to take up knighthood, and the former increased his wealth by acquiring substantial holdings in other counties too, as also did Combe, who had inherited land worth at least £20 p.a. which he used for the production of wool.

A few of this group of MPs returned between 1422 and 1437 had gained experience of royal office before their elections in Henry VI’s reign. Bird had served two terms as escheator of Hampshire and Wiltshire, as well as on a number of ad hoc commissions, and Collingbourne had been an under sheriff in three other counties. Wotton, Combe and Keche had been given responsibility for the collection of parliamentary subsidies. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Crown took any direct interest in Marlborough’s representation in this period, and only slight hints that its lord the duke of Gloucester might have done so. Selwood (1429) may have been the ‘plumber’ (dealer in lead) who had been the duke’s bailiff and receiver at ‘Salley’ not long before, but even if so there is no sign that he was still in ducal employment; and although Bird stood surety for the duke on one occasion, his earliest return for the borough pre-dated Duke Humphrey’s connexion with it.

If any significant outside influence over Marlborough’s elections is to be discerned, it is that of the former Speaker and veteran of at least 12 Parliaments, Sir William Sturmy* (d.1427), the hereditary warden of Savernake forest (of which Marlborough was the administrative headquarters). Earlier, in Henry V’s reign, Sir William’s associates had taken 11 out of 18 documented seats for Marlborough, and this interest in the borough’s representation received fresh emphasis after 1421. Not only was Sturmy’s bastard son, John, returned for the borough in 1423, but two years later his nephew and right-hand man, Erle, took a seat. While these two were undeniably close to the knight, who in his old age depended heavily on Erle in particular, others of the Sturmy circle were also elected for Marlborough. They included Gower, Newman, Keche and Wotton, while Bird was closely associated with Sir William in an official capacity as the latter, as the chief steward of the queen’s estates, was his superior officer. Evidence of the ties binding together the members of this circle is further provided by the parliamentary returns themselves. Clearly, they were ready to offer each other support at sessions of the shire court. John Benger†, a feoffee of Sturmy’s estates, had stood surety for Gower’s attendance in the Commons in 1420 and did likewise for Newman in 1423; while Newman appeared on behalf of Gower when returns were made to the Parliament of 1421 (Dec.), Erle stood surety for his cousin John Sturmy in 1423, and Keche did so for Bird in 1426.15 C219/12/4, 6; 13/2, 4. After Sir William Sturmy’s death some of these MPs stayed close to the coheir of his estates, his grandson John Seymour I*. This was especially true of Bird (a verderer of Savernake forest by Seymour’s appointment), and of Sir William’s servant Gatcombe. The latter, a beneficiary of the knight’s will, moved into Seymour’s service, and, significantly, his new master was the sheriff of Wiltshire responsible for certifying his return to Parliament for Marlborough in 1432. Collingbourne (elected in 1435), had earlier been appointed by Seymour as his under sheriff in Somerset and Dorset.

Marked changes to Marlborough’s representation may be noticed from 1442 onwards. Of the 15 men elected previously, only Combe was returned again; and only two of the 14 or 15 MPs returned to the Parliaments between 1442 and 1459 are known to have held property in the town (Ady and Richard Seymour). By contrast with the 1420s and 1430s, few of the MPs came from the immediate locality, and most of them had no recorded contact with the burgesses. Yet the majority did at least come from Wiltshire. They included Constantine Darell, a younger son of William Darell* and grandson of Thomas Calston† (both of them former knights of the shire), and Metford lived at Shalbourne, Onewyn at Horton, Pole in the south-west of the county, and Morgan and Wylly in Salisbury. To this group may perhaps also be added Howton, a Herefordshire man who seems to have occasionally resided at Boscombe, and Walrond who although he came from Childrey in Berkshire did possess property on the Wiltshire side of the county border. There is no doubt, however, that three of those elected in this period were outsiders to the county as well as to Marlborough itself: Thomas Brown (November 1449), Hardegrave (1453), who came from Dorset, and Vaughan (1455) a Welshman residing at Stepney in Middlesex.

As before, some of those elected in or after 1442 were professional administrators or trained in the law. Shortly after he sat for Marlborough in 1442, Morgan, a ‘gentleman’ or ‘esquire’, was appointed town clerk of Salisbury, and later in his career he served on the quorum of Wiltshire commissions and was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn. His fellow MP, Pole, similarly styled, may also have been a lawyer. Both men elected to the Parliament of 1449 (Feb.) were bailiffs of liberties pertaining to monastic houses, with Howton serving Cirencester abbey and Onewyn Amesbury priory, while Onewyn was also receiver of the Wiltshire estates of the King’s collegiate foundation in Cambridge. They too had received a legal training: Howton was later a fellow of Lincoln’s Inn, and Onewyn subsequently served on the quorum of the peace in Wiltshire. After his return for Marlborough in 1449 (Nov.), Walrond was made a j.p. of the quorum in Oxford and Berkshire and employed as an estates’ steward by St. George’s College, Windsor. The only MP for Marlborough known to have been engaged in trade was Wylly (1447), a cloth merchant, mercer and draper of Salisbury. Darell (1459), coming from the shire gentry, was later distrained for failing to take up knighthood.

For most of the MPs returned in the 1440s and 1450s their elections for Marlborough came early in their careers, when they had yet to make a mark; few had any previous experience of office by appointment of the Crown. One of the exceptions was Onewyn, who had been under sheriff not only in Wiltshire but also in Somerset and Dorset before his election; another was Darell, who was occupying a post in the customs service in Bishop’s Lynn when elected in 1459, but there is no evidence to suggest that their returns were due to any interference from the Lancastrian court. Yet the three outsiders almost certainly did owe their elections to their positions at the centre of government or in the royal household. The Thomas Brown returned in 1449 (Nov.) may have been either Thomas II, the former under treasurer and well-versed in the workings of the Exchequer, or Thomas III, the prothonotary of the common pleas, with many years’ experience of law-enforcement. Hardegrave, elected to the Commons of 1453 in the company of a significant number of other members of the Household, wore the King’s livery as the officer in charge of the otter-hunt; while Vaughan, returned in 1455, was currently master of the ordnance, and an esquire for the King’s body. In addition, the place Howton held in the service of the King’s carver, Sir Edmund Hungerford*, may well have been a significant factor in securing his election in 1449 (Feb.). As before, (Sir) John Seymour’s influence over Marlborough’s representation is noticeable: one of his servants, Ady, was elected in 1453, and in 1459 his younger son, Richard Seymour, took one of the seats, while the other went to a friend of the family, Darell, and these two accompanied to the Parliament at Coventry the knight’s elder son, John Seymour II*, then representing Wiltshire.