Canterbury

Pre-Roman in origin, Canterbury had emerged as the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent by the sixth century. King Ethelbert granted his palace there to St. Augustine in 597, so ensuring the city’s place as the first and long unrivalled centre of Christianity in England. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, Canterbury was a sizeable settlement of 12 parishes and an estimated population of some 4,000. Lacking in any industrial specialization in this period, it flourished as a regional market for east Kent and as one of the leading centres of pilgrimage in western Europe. The jubilee year 1420 saw hundreds of pilgrims flock there from elsewhere in England and overseas, and it remained such a centre until the suppression of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in 1538. Henry VI himself was a regular visitor, coming to Canterbury at least 12 times between 1436 and 1460, probably to visit the tomb of his grandfather, Henry IV, in Christ Church cathedral, as well as the shrine of St. Thomas.4 B.P. Wolffe, Hen. VI, 361-71.

Given its strategic position astride the main road linking London to the Channel ports, it was inevitable that Canterbury became embroiled in the turbulent politics and civil unrest that plagued the latter part of Henry VI’s reign, not least in 1450. At the beginning of that year, a hermit named Thomas Cheyne (otherwise ‘Bluebird’) began a rising in Kent, a disturbance quickly quashed when the citizens, led by their mayor, William Benet, captured him just outside Canterbury. Far more serious was Cade’s rebellion, the major insurrection that broke out in Kent and elsewhere in south-east England in the following spring. The city was a key target for Cade and his followers, but Benet and his fellow citizens again rose to the challenge by denying them entry on 7 June.5 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 186; CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 27v . By contrast, their counterparts at Rochester, where there was a large demonstration in support of the rebellion, were either powerless or unwilling to keep the rebels out of their city in the following month.6 I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade, 73-101. It was in recognition for its efforts that Canterbury received its charter of May 1453. In the preamble, the King recognized the city’s importance as a centre of pilgrimage and as the burial place of Henry IV, and cited the ‘services rendered by the citizens’ in capturing Cheyne and resisting Cade ‘at their own expense and risk’. Yet it also empowered the mayor to array the citizens ‘for the resistance and depression of [the King’s] enemies’, suggesting that there may have been some opposition to Benet’s efforts to rally the citizens against the rebels.7 Canterbury city recs., charter of 1453, CCA-CC-A/A/33; CChR, vi. 122-5. Significantly, Benet’s successor as mayor in 1450 was Gervase Clifton*, a follower of Cardinal John Kemp, the Kent-born archbishop of York and chancellor of England, who had taken an active role in dealing with the rebellion and its aftermath.8 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 616, 619, 628, 641, 663. Before the end of 1450, Clifton, an esquire of considerable military experience, also took up the office of sheriff of a still unsettled Kent. While a member of the county’s gentry, Clifton was however by no means a stranger to the city, which had admitted him to its freedom in 1440 without requiring the usual entry fine, out of ‘reverence’ for his distinguished patron and in recognition of the ‘affection’ it had received from him.9 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 271v.

It was also impossible for Canterbury to avoid the later troubles of Henry VI’s reign, for Kent faced threats to the peace from both foreign enemies and warring domestic factions during the later 1450s and early 1460s, a situation reflected in the city’s archives. From 1457-8, its chamberlains’ accounts record regular purchases of guns and gunpowder and the dispatching of men to musters on the Downs, in response to frequent threats from French-based pirates. In 1458-9, the city presented gifts to Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, whose influence in Kent had increased following his recent appointment as keeper of the seas, and another Yorkist lord, the Bastard of Fauconberg.10 CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 56, 56v, 60. As with their counterparts in other urban communities, the authorities at Canterbury had to steer a delicate course over the following accounting year. On the one hand, they had dealings with Lancastrian magnates like Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and Robert Hungerford, Lord Moleyns, the latter of whom issued orders to them to repair the city’s walls, suggesting that they came under pressure to resist the Yorkists.11 Ibid. f. 63v. On the other, Canterbury found itself playing host to the earl of March, the eldest son of the duke of York, following the return from exile in Calais of him and other Yorkist lords in the summer of 1460. It appears there was at least some pro-Yorkist sentiment among the citizens, since an anti-Lancastrian ballad appeared affixed to the Westgate shortly before the return of those lords to England.12 English Chron. (Cam. Soc. lxiv), 91-92. During 1460-1, the city took the precaution of recalling its guns from Whitstable but there is no evidence that any of the inhabitants played an active part in the fighting that toppled Henry VI from his throne.13 CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 67v.

At the beginning of Henry’s reign, a corporation headed by two bailiffs governed Canterbury, a system of administration underpinned by the city’s charters, notably those of Henry III. That of 1233 permitted the citizens to hold the city from the Crown for an annual fee farm of £60, while two more, both of 1256, conferred freedom from interference in their affairs by royal officials, including the privilege of return of writs. The prerequisite for joining the governing elite was, of course, admission to the freedom of the city, whether through inheritance, purchase, marriage to the daughter of an existing freeman or as a gift to those worthy of special favour.14 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 458-9. Elections for the bailiffs, along with the 12 jurats and a group of 36 ‘honest and worshipful men’ who assisted them, took place on the feast of Cosmas and Damianus (27 Sept.) each year. The surviving record of the election held in 1418 shows that a committee consisting of the two outgoing bailiffs and ten other citizens they had nominated chose the new officials, and there is no reason to believe that this was not the normal procedure followed.15 Ibid. 459; Canterbury city recs., burghmote min. bk. 1419-1548, CCA-CC-A/C/1. By the period under review, bailiffs served consecutive terms more frequently than they had done in the fourteenth century, but none did so for as many as three years in succession. On four occasions between 1422 and 1447, both bailiffs were re-elected for a second term. Similarly, jurats could hold office for no more than two consecutive terms: those re-elected for a second year bore the title ‘senior’ and the newcomers that of ‘junior’. There was however no bar on former bailiffs and jurats who had served double terms from holding those positions again after they had spent a year out of office. Henry VI’s reign saw one major innovation in the system of government at Canterbury, by virtue of the charter granted to the city in 1448: the replacement of the bailiffs by a mayor, likewise elected annually.16 Canterbury city recs., charter of 1448, CCA-CC-A/A/32 (calendared in CPR, 1446-52, pp. 181-3). Another office, that of alderman, was non-elective, since it was historically a freehold right, originally held in capite of the Crown, and acquired by sale or inheritance. There was an alderman for each of the city’s six wards, named after the principal gates. By the mid fifteenth century, the aldermanry of Westgate was nominally in the Crown’s gift although the King granted all his right and title to it to William Say, an usher of the Chamber, in November 1440. The grant was for life but Say did not hold it for long. Soon afterwards, the first wife of Gervase Clifton purchased the aldermanry, which subsequently passed by way of exchange to Thomas Brown II* in the 1450s. Following Brown’s attainder and execution for treason in July 1460, it returned briefly to the Crown before passing jointly in the autumn of the same year to the dead man’s widow and her prospective husband to be, Thomas Vaughan*.17 W. Somner, Antiqs. Canterbury, ed. Urry, 52-54, app. VI; CPR, 1436-41, p. 474; 1452-61, pp. 629, 631; CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 298; CCA-CC-F/A/2, ff. 17v, 54v, 63v, 70v; CIMisc. viii. 222; C1/67/234. The other five aldermanries remained in the hands of citizens throughout the fifteenth century, and their incumbents, several of whom were also MPs, played an active role in city affairs. Before 1448, the aldermen held courts of wardmote every three weeks, a procedure following the practice of the city of London.18 The record of a case of counterfeiting held in 1443 before William Chilton, alderman of Worgate, survives in C145/311/1. After that date, they also sat ex officio in the mayor’s court of burghmote, possibly in place of the 12 jurats.19 CCA-CC-A/C/1.

An immediate priority for the city at the beginning of Henry VI’s reign was to secure a confirmation of its previous charters, although they had to wait until June 1425 for the issuing of the requisite letters patent.20 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 153v; CPR, 1422-9, pp. 292-3. The most significant new charter of the reign was that of 2 Aug. 1448. As its records show, the city obtained it partly through the ‘good lordship’ of John Stafford, archbishop of Canterbury, to whom it presented gifts worth £2 15s. 4d.21 CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 20v. Apart from establishing the office of mayor, the charter granted several new privileges to the citizens. First, it gave them the right to hold two weekly courts on Mondays and Thursdays for all pleas and quarrels in the city, and a fortnightly court of burghmote for pleas regarding lands and tenures within the city and suburbs. Secondly, it empowered the mayor and aldermen to make ‘reasonable ordinances and constitutions for the good weal and rule’ of the city, tax its inhabitants and imprison recalcitrant citizens. Finally, it permitted the mayor and commonalty to acquire lands in mortmain and to sue and be sued in the King’s courts.22 CCA-CC-A/A/32. Just under five years later, the city obtained another charter, dated 4 May 1453. It confirmed that of 1448, indemnified the city against the Act of Resumption of 1450 and clarified that the procedure for electing mayors should follow Canterbury’s old customs or those of London. It also granted the city the right to hold an annual fair every 4-6 August.23 CCA-CC-A/A/33; CChR, vi. 122-5.

The acquisition of the charter of 1448 invigorated the citizens in their centuries’ old jurisdictional dispute with the local Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine, at the heart of which lay the abbey’s manor of Langport in the eastern suburbs of Canterbury, with its hamlets of Fishpole, St. Laurence and Wyke. Following a renewal of hostilities in the first decade of the fifteenth century, there were troubled relations between the city and the abbey for much of Henry VI’s reign. The citizens employed three simultaneous means of asserting their jurisdiction over the disputed manor. First and most immediately, they resorted to occasional trespasses and assaults against the abbot’s property and servants. Secondly, they attempted to secure the good lordship of important individuals. Thirdly and most importantly, they resorted to the royal courts at Westminster, bringing cases in both the common pleas and King’s bench and seeking exemplifications of previous judgements to establish their rights over the manor. The abbots likewise pursued actions at Westminster. The later 1430s saw the indictment of two groups of citizens for forcibly entering the precincts of the abbey while visiting the hospital of St. Lawrence at that saint’s feast day of 10 Aug. 1436. In their defence, they claimed that the hospital was parcel of the liberties of the city and that they were accustomed to progressing there to present alms every year on that day. The same period saw a former bailiff, William Benet, face charges in King’s bench relating to the city’s collection of fines in the manor of Langport decades earlier. In his defence, presented by Canterbury’s attorney, William Osbourne, he asserted that the manor lay within the liberties of the city, a claim that the Crown would not however acknowledge.24 KB27/706, rex rots. 29, 37; 709, rex rot. 2; 747, rex rot. 24d; S. Sweetinburgh, ‘Production of St. Lawrence’s Hosp. Regs.’, in The Fifteenth Cent. XIII ed. Clark, 110-13; CCA-CC-F/A/1, ff. 121, 126v, 131v, 218v, 243, 250, 268v, 276v; CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 20v. To aid them in their litigation with the abbot, the citizens collected a formidable array of old charters and exemplifications of ancient judgements, which in due course were stored with the charter of 1448 in a specially commissioned wooden chest in the Guildhall.25 CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 29v. Two collections of this material are still extant. The first is at the end of the previous vol. of chamberlains’ accts., CCA-CC-F/A/1, while a larger collection is now Add. 32311.

By contrast, the citizens generally enjoyed much better relations with the other major religious institution in Canterbury, the cathedral priory of Christ Church. The career of one of the MPs, William Rose, provides an example of the positive side of this relationship. It was out of its ‘reverence’ for the prior that the city had admitted him as a freeman in 1410, and he was serving as the prior’s bailiff by the mid 1440s.

Another such example is the lease of land in St. Michael’s parish, including part of the city walls, that the city made to the prior and convent in 1429.26 Canterbury city recs., Woodruff’s List, CCA-CC-WOODRUFF, bdle. 4, no. 1. On the other hand, the city and priory sometimes quarrelled. In April 1426, the bailiffs and other citizens violated the sanctuary of Christ Church in pursuit of an alleged thief, whom they dragged from his hiding place underneath the tomb that the archbishop of Canterbury, Henry Chichele, had prepared for himself. The monks reported the incident to the archbishop who ordered the bailiffs to do public penance for the outrage. In the following year the city and priory quarrelled over the prior’s right to sell victuals in the city, and in April 1428 both sides agreed to abide by the arbitration of John Martin, one of the justices of common pleas, and Geoffrey Lowther*.27 Literae Cantuarienses ed. Sheppard, iii. 146-8, 150-1.

The names of all 23 men who sat for Canterbury in Henry VI’s reign survive, and the city’s records show the means by which 18 of them became freemen. Just seven were natives of Canterbury, who inherited the freedom, two others married into it and nine bought it, although three of the purchasers had their fees waived in recognition or anticipation of services to the city. While it is impossible to determine how many of the 31 known MPs for Canterbury of the period 1386-1421 were natives of the city, all of them lived and owned property there.28 The Commons 1386-1421, i. 460. Similarly, all of the 23 MPs of Henry VI’s reign appear to have lived in Canterbury for the whole or at least part of their careers. It is possible, however, that Thomas Walter, a yeoman of the King’s chamber, and William Bolde had no connexions with the city prior to their return to the Parliament of February 1449. Yet within a few months of the dissolution of that assembly, Bolde began a short career in the government of the city (and in any case, he may have counted other Boldes of Canterbury as his relatives), and Walter also formed more than a passing association with the city, since he features as ‘formerly of Canterbury’ in records of the late 1450s and early 1460s. In short, Canterbury very largely maintained its parliamentary independence during the period under review, an independence it continued to preserve throughout the sixteenth century.29 The Commons 1509-58, i. 115; 1558-1603, i. 183. Walter’s fellow Household man, William Say, certainly forged strong ties with the city. He already had a link with it prior to his election, thanks to the royal grant to him of the aldermanry of Westgate in 1440, and he became a citizen shortly before entering the Commons of 1442. He actively represented Canterbury’s interests as an MP and took for his second wife the widow of a former citizen. Roger Ridley was another non-native with wider interests than most, for he had connexions with Essex and Cheshire, but he played an active part in the administration of Canterbury after settling there.

Only one of the 23, John Sheldwich, appears to have come from a family with a tradition of parliamentary service. Two namesakes, his putative father and grandfather, had sat for the city in several Parliaments of the fourteenth and early fifteenth century and his son, Nicholas Sheldwich† would represent Canterbury in at least three under Henry VII. In part, the general lack of parliamentary dynasties may have arisen from the failures in the male line in most of the families from which the MPs came. Besides Sheldwich, only two left sons who played an active role in the city’s affairs. Several of the other Members did however have family links with Parliament. The two Lyndes were brothers, Say’s second wife was the widow of John Pirie*, a knight of the shire for Kent in the Parliament of 1433, and it is likely that John and William Bonnington were close relatives. Finally, one authority would have it that John Freningham’s first wife was a daughter of (Sir) John Scott†, a future knight of the shire.

If this marriage alliance with the Scotts did occur, it was a noteworthy match, since Freningham – albeit a member of the civic elite when he sat in the Commons – was a butcher and his father, another butcher, had never become a freeman of Canterbury. Of the 11 other MPs who were certainly tradesmen, as many as four were brewers who perhaps made their primary living catering to pilgrims and other visitors to the city. Although in the minority, lawyers played an important role in the parliamentary representation of Canterbury, especially before 1450. Four of the 23, Gilbert German, Henry Lynde, William Osbourne and Sheldwich, were definitely men of law, as probably was Bolde, and at least one of these five men sat in 11 of the 17 Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign that met before 1450. It is possible that the city’s long-running dispute with St. Augustine’s abbey and its desire to obtain a new charter defining its boundaries and liberties accounts for the prominence of lawyers up to that date. If so, the resolution or at least amelioration of these issues might explain its lack of legally-trained parliamentary representatives during the last decade of Henry VI’s reign.

While the lawyers among the 23 had regular dealings with other corporations and important individuals, the focus of their activities was east Kent. With the obvious exceptions of the Household men, Say and Walter, many of the other MPs appear to have lacked significant contacts beyond the city unrelated to trade. Testamentary evidence reinforces an impression of insularity. There are extant wills for 11 of the Members. The charitable bequests of these testators were overwhelmingly to Canterbury’s parish churches and religious houses and only Ridley left sums to churches outside east Kent. All of them sought burial at Canterbury: seven in their local parish churches; another, Freningham, in the cathedral; and three in St. Augustine’s, in spite of the city’s disputes with that religious house, quarrels in which two of the three, William Bonnington and John Mulling, were certainly involved.

Members of the legal profession were usually ‘gentlemen’, but the lawyer MPs were not alone in possessing that status, which Robert Bartelot, Bolde, William Bonnington, Thomas Forster and the brewers, John Lynde, John Winter and Ridley, all enjoyed at one time or another, if not for the whole of their careers. Furthermore, Forster sometimes features in the records as an ‘esquire’, a rank also held by John Bonnington, a servant of the bishop of Rochester, and the royal servant, Say. In spite of his status, Say’s assessment for the subsidy of 1436 was on the basis that he received a mere £6 p.a. in lands and fees. Even if this represented a considerable undervaluation, it is likely that his income from such sources had risen by the time he entered his first Parliament in 1442. Eleven of his fellow MPs also appear in subsidy returns. According to their assessments for the subsidy of 1451, both John Lynde and William Bonnington held lands worth £20 p.a., making them two of the wealthiest inhabitants of the city in the mid fifteenth century, although they may have been far less substantial figures while Members in the Parliaments of the 1430s. Winter, Mulling and Freningham also feature in the returns of the subsidy of 1451, a tax levied at a point close in time to their parliamentary careers. The respective valuations of £10 and £8 for the first two of these men placed them in the middle rank of the ruling elite of Canterbury, but that of just £4 for Freningham was the lowest for any citizen who served as mayor of the city. At first glance, Freningham’s assessment throws the usefulness of such valuations into question, since his will shows he died possessed of landed interests in Canterbury, several of its surrounding villages and the Isle of Thanet, holdings he confidently expected to raise over £242 when put up for sale. On the other hand, he lived for another quarter of a century after the levying of that subsidy, giving him plenty of opportunity to accumulate wealth in the meantime. Four other MPs, Bartelot, Benet, German and Sheldwich, feature in records relating to the subsidy of 1431 although these assessments provide incomplete information for their real property. For example, that for Benet found he possessed holdings in Canterbury worth £8 p.a. but did not take account of his interests outside the city, at Sandwich and elsewhere. Similarly, German’s recorded that he owned properties in Canterbury worth no more than 10s. per year but these comprised just some of his holdings in Kent, while that for Sheldwich valued the land he held in ‘Stowysete’ at £1 p.a. while noting he also derived a further, unknown income from unspecified estates elsewhere in Kent.

Most of the 23 had a similar cursus honorum, holding one or more of the main civic offices, with as many as 18 of them becoming bailiff or (after 1448) mayor. Only three of the MPs, Walter, Say and Osbourne, played no formal role in the internal government of Canterbury although Osbourne was the city’s attorney at Westminster from 1437 until 1449. The 23 supplied the first two mayors of Canterbury, John Lynde and Benet. Benet, mayor at the time of Cade’s rebellion, had the most eventful term within the period under review although Nicholas Faunte was mayor when he suffered death at the scaffold in 1471 for rebelling against Edward IV. Generally, the role of MP fell to those who had yet to attain the apex of the civic hierarchy, since only four men entered Parliament after serving as bailiff or mayor.

Serving jurats feature strongly among the MPs during parts of the period under review. One or both representatives were jurats in each of Henry VI’s first five Parliaments but in only four of the next 13. In the last three Parliaments of the reign, however, four of the six MPs sat while jurats. Except for the Parliament of 1460, to which Ridley, then mayor, gained election, no serving bailiffs or mayors of Canterbury represented the city, although Mulling was the deputy mayor under Gervase Clifton when returned in 1450.

Apart from civic offices, nearly half the MPs held office by direct appointment of the Crown in Canterbury or the wider county of Kent during Henry VI’s reign. In the great majority of cases, however, they did not do so until after sitting in their first or only Parliaments, meaning that such positions had little or no bearing on their parliamentary careers. Nine of them were members of ad hoc commissions in this period, although German did serve in the more simportant position of escheator in Kent and Middlesex. He did not, however, begin his term as such until nearly nine years after representing Canterbury in the Commons. Say held a couple of offices at Sandwich by gift of the Crown, those of customs collector and joint bailiff of that Cinque Port, but not until after he had sat for Canterbury for the second and last time. In any case, the latter position, which he shared with another Household servant, Robert Whittingham II*, was a sinecure, as was an office he held throughout his parliamentary career, that of keeper of the royal manor of Eltham. Given their external interests and responsibilities, it is scarcely surprising to find that Say and Walter, the other Household man among the 23, were among those who never held civic office, even if they were by no means outsiders to the city. While Say’s membership of the royal establishment played a part in his return to two Parliaments, all the signs are that Canterbury’s electors willingly returned him to the Commons. For want of evidence that Walter forged similarly strong links with the city, however, it is possible that he was a candidate imposed on them.

While it is likely that Walter’s ties with the Crown were instrumental in securing election for Canterbury to two Parliaments, it is worth noting that he had previously sat for Bletchingley, a Surrey borough under the lordship of the Stafford family. It is therefore possible that he entered the service of Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, as perhaps did the other Household man, Say. The latter also gained election for Bletchingley, in his case in the Parliament of 1450, not long after Buckingham had taken up office as constable of Dover castle where Say was joint warrener. Say owed his position as warrener to a previous constable, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, but there is no evidence of an attachment between him and that lord. It is however possible that he was part of the circle of James Fiennes*, Lord Saye and Sele, Gloucester’s successor as constable and a powerful Kentish courtier of the 1440s, and that Fiennes’s following exerted at least some influence on his behalf at Canterbury’s elections to the Parliaments of 1442 and 1447. Even though Say and Walter must have had more frequent dealings with the nobility than the other MPs, only Faunte certainly enjoyed the patronage of a lay magnate, in his case Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. It seems likely that Faunte’s links with Neville were significant for his election to the Parliament of 1460, an assembly summoned in favourable circumstances for the Yorkist cause of which Neville was one of the leading proponents.

The election of John Bonnington in 1429 is nevertheless the only confirmed instance in which the intervention of a patron was crucial, although the patron in question was a bishop rather than a lay lord. Following the summoning of that Parliament, Canterbury elected Sheldwich and Rose, only for John Langdon, bishop of Rochester, to persuade the sheriff of Kent to override the return of the latter in favour of Bonnington, forcing the recall of Rose after he had already spent five days at Westminster. In spite of the citizens’ protests at such a blatant breach of their privileges, they were obliged to give way ‘at the special request of the said bishop’ and in recognition of the previous friendship of Langdon (a figure of some consequence as a royal councillor and ambassador) towards the city. During the following Parliament, however, one of Canterbury’s MPs visited the chancellor of England, Archbishop Kemp, at Leeds castle, and the sheriff of Kent at Rochester, presumably to ensure that Langdon’s interference did not establish any precedent. The controversy of 1429 appears to have put paid to Bonnington’s further involvement in civic government, even though he was no newcomer to the city, having served there as a jurat and previously represented it in the Parliament of 1426.

John Bonnington was far from alone in representing Canterbury in more than one Parliament, since 15 of the 23 gained election for the city more than once in the course of their careers. Apart from Bonnington, six others were Members of two, while four of the MPs sat in three, two in four and one in six. Another, Sheldwich, attended no fewer than 14 Parliaments as an MP for Canterbury, entering the Commons for the first time in 1413 and for the last in 1439. Sheldwich was not the only man to sit for the city prior to 1422, since Benet, Henry Lynde and Rose likewise began their parliamentary careers before the accession of Henry VI. Three of the MPs, Faunte, Freningham and William Selowe, also sat for Canterbury outside the period under review, in their case in Parliaments that met after 1460. Another three, German, Walter and Say, represented other constituencies as well, although Say did not do so until after sitting for Canterbury. As already noted, Say and Walter were MPs for Bletchingley and Say would represent another Sussex borough, New Shoreham, in his last known Parliament, while the lawyer German sat twice for Dover before his election for Canterbury in 1437. In short, Canterbury benefited from a wealth of parliamentary experience in its representatives and in only three Parliaments of this period were both MPs novices.30 1422, 1442 and 1460. In another 11, one of them had previously sat at least once (whether for Canterbury or another constituency),31 1425, 1426, 1432, 1433, 1437, 1445, 1449 (Feb.), 1449 (Nov.), 1453, 1455 and 1459. and both MPs in the remaining eight possessed previous parliamentary experience.32 1423, 1427, 1429, 1431, 1435, 1439, 1447 and 1450.

It is nevertheless possible that the previously elected Member of the pair returned in 1459, Selowe, was a newcomer to the Commons when he took up his seat in that assembly, since the accounts of the city’s chamberlains show that they paid wages to his fellow burgess of 1453, Walter, but not to him. Similarly, there is no evidence for Ridley’s attendance at the Parliament of 1460, for a like want of any record of wage payments to him. Furthermore, not all of those Members who certainly took up their seats attended a Parliament for its duration. Bolde, for example, received wages for only 65 days’ attendance in the Parliament of February 1449, an assembly that sat for 107. Attendance records aside, it is clear that the 23 possessed more collective parliamentary experience than the MPs for Rochester, the other parliamentary borough in Kent. Rochester returned newcomers to the Commons in at least eight of Henry VI’s Parliaments, and just two of its known Members had significant parliamentary careers in terms of duration and frequency of election. Rochester also saw a rise in outsiders or semi-outsiders representing it in the second half of Henry VI’s reign. Perhaps its civic elite had become fearful of involvement in increasingly volatile national politics, especially after the shock of Cade’s rebellion during which they had failed to distinguish themselves in comparison with their counterparts at Canterbury. Rochester’s comparative lack of wealth is another possible explanation, since outsiders or semi-outsiders might be prepared to forgo their expenses.

The venue for the formal returns of the MPs for Canterbury was the county court for Kent and some of the indentures recording the election of the knights of the shire misleadingly imply that the selection of the city’s representatives took place there as well. In fact, as the record in the chamberlains’ accounts of the controversy of 1429 indicates, the burghmote was where the actual elections of its MPs occurred. Before 1460, there were no separate election indentures for Canterbury and the names of its parliamentary burgesses appeared on the dorse of the writ returned by the sheriff of Kent, along with those of the knights of the shire and the burgesses for Rochester. The parties to the city’s indenture of 1460 were the mayor of Canterbury, John Winter, acting ‘in the name of the citizens of the foresaid city’, and John Scott, the sheriff of Kent. It stated that Ridley and Faunte had been ‘chosen in the presence of and with the assent and consent of all the citizens of the foresaid city and elected to be at the Parliament of the said lord the King at Westminster’. It does not, however, name the participants in the election, but they probably included the aldermen, jurats and a proportion of the 36. The three other extant late medieval election indentures for Canterbury do include lists of the attestors for the city: they numbered 13 in 1467, 15 in 1472 and 14 for the Parliament of 1478. Curiously the mayor does not feature in those of 1467 and 1472 although the then holder of that office, Thomas Atwode†, did attest that for 1478. If the attestors were synonymous with the actual participants in the proceedings at the burghmote, the choice of candidates rested with a very small body of citizens.

With the exception of that of 1429, there is no evidence that elections were normally troublesome. Indeed, the consternation arising from Bishop Langdon’s interference indicates that Canterbury had usually enjoyed freedom in its choice of Members prior to that date. There are, however, signs that external factors played a part in elections to some of the later Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign. The returns of the Household men, Say and Walter, in 1447 and 1453 were to Parliaments called in auspicious times for the Court. It is also worth noting that the sheriff in 1447, William Isle*, was a member of the circle of the prominent Kentish courtier, (Sir) James Fiennes, and that the sheriff when Faunte gained election in 1460 was the Yorkist John Scott.

Traditionally, Canterbury had paid its MPs the 2s. per day that boroughs customarily allowed their representatives, but it began to resort to less generous arrangements within a decade of Henry VI’s accession. For example, the chamberlains’ accounts show that John Bonnington attended the whole of the Parliament of 1429 save for its first five days. In all, this assembly sat for 129 days but he took wages totalling just 53s. 4d., a daily rate of pay well below the 2s., perhaps a politic concession on the part of him and his patron in the face of the protests stirred by his irregular return.33 CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 198. By 1433, payments at the customary rate were becoming an onerous charge on the civic purse. For the Parliament of that year they came to £22 4s., almost a third of the city’s total receipts,34 Ibid. ff. 223-v. and both MPs, Sheldwich and William Bonnington, agreed to forswear some of those wages, albeit only £1 between them. In 1445, ‘by consideration of the 12 jurats’, the city halved the daily allowance to 1s., only to pay its representatives in the next Parliament, that of 1447, at the old rate. This restoration of the old wages was temporary, for their successors in the following Parliament received only 1s. per day. It is possible that the wages allowed in 1447 reflected the status of the MPs concerned, the city’s attorney, Osbourne, and the royal servant, Say. Alternatively, they may have taken into account extra expenses incurred in travelling to Bury St. Edmunds where the Parliament met. For the Parliament of 1459, which met at Coventry rather than the much closer Westminster, Canterbury once again paid its Members 2s. per day, along with another 20s. each for their riding costs.